'Captain America: Brave New World' Box Office: The Bar For Success Should Be 'Winter Soldier,' Not 'Civil War'

Amid a shifting culture and a decline in Marvel's automatic event movie status, grosses on par with what was good enough in 2014 would be a measured win in 2025.

For those so inclined…

Today marks exactly one month before the release of this year’s first conventional tentpole, Disney’s Captain America: Brave New World. I have not seen the film and don’t know how much it cost following allegedly copious reshoots alongside strike-caused delays. However, if it opens within the range offered at Shawn Robbins’ Box Office Theory, between $81 million and $107 million for the Fri-Sun portion of a Fri-Mon President’s Day weekend, that would be an okay start, provided the reviews and buzz are relatively positive. Inflation notwithstanding, the Anthony Mackie/Harrison Ford political thriller is being sold not as a follow-up to Captain America: Civil War but as a spiritual follow-up to the less event-sized Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Its post-debut success will mostly depend on whether it works not as an MCU event movie but as a fourth Captain America film.