‘The Marvels‘ Box Office Prediction: Can It Repeat the Original Movie’s Commercial Success?
Marvel Studios’ tradition to release at least three movies a year is continuing in 2023. This year, we watched ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ and ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.’ Out of these two movies, one received mixed reviews, and the other one was praised and was another box-office success for the studio. This year’s last big-screen MCU event will be ‘The Marvels,’ a sequel to 2019’s ‘Captain Marvel’ and a follow-up to 2022’s series ‘Ms. Marvel.’ In this article, we’ll try to predict how much ‘The Marvels’ will earn at the box office. There are a number of things that could influence its commercial result.
The original ‘Captain Marvel’ movie grossed $1.131 billion worldwide. Looking at the last few MCU projects and their commercial results, we’d say it’s next to impossible for ‘The Marvels’ to reach anywhere close to that. The production budget was revealed to be $274.8 million, which makes it the most expensive movie of the Multiverse Saga, so anything below $700-750 million wouldn’t be much of a success, and that is actually a reasonable estimate for the 33rd MCU movie. However, a number of things can influence the movie’s box-office result in a negative way and potentially turn this movie into a box-office disappointment.
Despite numerous discussions about superhero fatigue, we wouldn’t say that producing superhero movies has become an unprofitable business, at least regarding Marvel (DC is a different story, but that’s a topic for some other article). However, it can’t be denied that MCU movies are earning significantly less than at the time when MCU was at the climax of the Infinity Saga in 2019. The original ‘Captain Marvel’ was also released then, giving it the advantage that ‘The Marvels’ doesn’t have now. Let’s see what things are in favor of ‘The Marvels,’ and what absolutely aren’t.
Some things can help ‘The Marvels’ reach a better commercial result, but more of them aren’t in the movie’s favor!
Let’s go back to early 2019 for a moment. We still remember the enormous hype for the upcoming ‘Avengers: Endgame.’ Following the release of ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ in 2018, every MCU waited only to see the final showdown! Two months before ‘Endgame,’ Marvel Studios released ‘Captain Marvel,’ which introduced Brie Larson’s titular character to prepare her for her appearance in ‘Endgame.’
‘Captain Marvel’ received positive reviews from critics but rather mixed reviews from the audience, which can be said only by looking at 79% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer and 45% of the audience score. However, the movie joined the billion-dollar club, and it’s safe to say that the hype for ‘Avengers: Endgame’ helped a lot since ‘Captain Marvel’ was the last step before the final showdown against Thanos. We might as well remind you that all three MCU movies released in 2019 grossed over a billion dollars.
However, we aren’t in 2019 anymore. Four years later, a lot of things have happened, and ‘The Marvels’ doesn’t have that hype card to play. Let’s take a look at the last four MCU movies. ‘Thor 4,’ ‘Black Panther 2,’ ‘Ant-Man 3,’ and ‘Guardians of the Galaxy 3.’ All of these movies were sequels and earned less than their predecessors. That was particularly noticeable with ‘Black Panther 2,’ which couldn’t join the billion-dollar club like the original movie, and ‘Ant-Man 3’ turned out to be a disappointment with less than $500 million earned.
As for ‘The Marvels,’ even though it doesn’t have that advantage the original movie had, the good news for the movie is that ‘Dune: Part Two,’ one of the most anticipated movies of the year, was recently delayed, and that at least somewhat reduced the competition. Still, the biggest bump on the road is, you guessed it, the strikes.
The actors are still prohibited from promoting their movies, and let’s not forget that Marvel Studios didn’t even attend Hall H at this year’s Comic Con. So basically, trailers and posters are everything we have out of promoting material, which, we’d say, isn’t enough for one superhero blockbuster.
Another thing (yes, there’s more) is how much this movie depends on the pre-knowledge of MCU fans. ‘The Marvels’ was initially announced as ‘Captain Marvel 2,’ but it was retitled after it was announced that apart from being a sequel, this is also a crossover movie that will feature the return of the ‘WandaVision’ star Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau and the ‘Ms. Marvel’ star Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan.
Once we add to it that the movie takes place right after the events of ‘Secret Invasion,’ you can see how much Marvel Studios counts on everyone to follow their Disney+ content faithfully, and we aren’t sure that’s the right approach for the general audience. That is okay story-wise, but we aren’t sure how much of the movie will be understandable to someone who didn’t watch those shows. ‘Doctor Strange 2’ played that part by following up to ‘WandaVision’ rather well, but will ‘The Marvels’ manage to do the same?
Despite the fact that ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’ was both critically and commercially successful, don’t be fooled that the MCU will come back to its 2017/2018/2019 tracks that easily. Oh, no. The franchise is still looking to build up that central storyline of this Multiverse Saga, and although we have many upcoming projects that can be potentially really interesting, it’s going to take a lot more to repeat that peak the franchise had back then.
In the end, we don’t know how much importance Captain Marvel will have in the upcoming crossover events, which wasn’t the case when the original ‘Captain Marvel’ came out. So, does ‘The Marvels’ have a chance to be commercially successful? Yes! Is there a chance to be a box-office disappointment? Also yes! We can only wait for November to see how it’s going to go.
Directed by Nia DaCosta, ‘The Marvels’ is scheduled to be released on November 10, 2023.
Have something to add on this topic? Are you looking forward to ‘The Marvels’? How much do you think the movie will earn? Let us know in the comments.
