Disney’s Captain Marvel’s Audience Score has fluctuated from Rotten to Fresh over the short lifespan it’s been in theaters, but it appears it will be officially Rotten moving forward.
The Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score currently sits at 59% based off of 75,471 reviews.
Just last week the movie had a Fresh Audience Score. For those unfamiliar with how Rotten Tomatoes comes to their Audience Score it’s based off reviews that are 3.5 stars or higher.
Not only has the Captain Marvel Audience Score moved into rotten territory, but the film has seemingly stalled at the box office. In its third weekend the film only brought in over $34 million nearly a 50% decline from the previous week.
For comparison sake, DC’s Wonder Woman only had a 30% decline in its third week where it brought in over $41 million.
In fact, Captain Marvel currently sits at the midway point as the 10th highest domestic grossing film of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, the film has also been playing in a lot more theaters with Box Office Mojo reporting the film has been in 4,310 theaters.
It definitely doesn’t look like the film will hit Disney’s projected domestic gross of $450 million. In fact, it looks like it will fall well short of it.
And prospects for the film having any kind of longevity look grim as the movie is finally facing some kind of competition with Jordan Peele’s Us, which raked in over $70 million in its opening weekend.
This weekend Captain Marvel will not only face competition from Us, but Disney’s Dumbo as well. However, critics are already panning Dumbo as it currently has a 55% Rotten score on the Tomatometer from 123 reviews. So, a bad Dumbo movie might actually help Captain Marvel.
It’s possible Captain Marvel might not even hit $400 million at the domestic box office. Cosmic Book News has been tracking Captain Marvel in comparison to Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. They report that Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 was able to maintain a steadier flow than Captain Marvel as the Brie Larson starring film is quickly fading when it comes to people either rewatching it or seeing it for the first time.
After the third week, Captain Marvel still has a slight advantage over Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Captain Marvel’s domestic gross was $320 million while Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 was $301 million. But interestingly enough Guardians actually made more money in its third weekend than Captain Marvel by around half a million.
What makes these numbers even more worrying for Disney is that Captain Marvel was teased in the end credits of Avengers: Infinity War and the film was released a month before Avengers: Endgame with the hint that Captain Marvel would play a significant role in the film. Despite the film’s placement, it might still perform worse than Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
The film has faced its fair share of controversy with much of it brought on by its star Brie Larson. Larson injected her own personal politics into the marketing of the film even describing the film as her form of activism. She would go on to make cracks about the patriarchy, and describe the film as promoting intersectional feminism. But maybe the biggest piece of controversy Larson brought upon herself was her comments about wanting fewer white men to review Captain Marvel and cover the film on her press tour.
What do you make of Captain Marvel’s Rotten Tomatoes score sinking into Rotten territory? What about the fact that the film is stalling out at the box office? Does this bode ill for the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe after Avengers: Endgame?