As 'The Marvels' Collapses, Disney Needs More Than The X-Men To Save the MCU

If the Marvel Studios brand no longer guarantees audience interest, then even MCU-specific versions of "Fantastic Four" or "Blade" may not be enough to turn the tide.

Iman Vellani, Brie Larson and Teyonah Parris in The Marvels

The Marvels looks to close its theatrical run with around $85 million in North America and approximately $210 million worldwide. That will be 81% less than the $1.13 billion total of Captain Marvel, a larger drop than even Alice Through the Looking Glass (-71% from Alice in Wonderland’s $1.1025 billion cume). That's also on par with the $83 million domestic and $203 million global cume of DC Films’ (excellent) Birds of Prey. 

Differing budgets and genres aside (an $80 million R-rated crime flick versus a $200 million-plus PG-13 sci-fi fantasy) they share a few components. They were both Marvel/DC movies directed by up-and-coming female directors of color (Candyman and Little Woods helmer Nia DaCosta and Dead Pigs’ Cathy Yan). Both are not a solo sequel for a marquee female character (Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel and Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn) but a confusingly titled girl-powered ensemble flick. Moreover, the most important similarity is that, in both cases, their existence in a popular cinematic universe that was mostly rocking and rolling at the box office didn’t move the needle.

That’s the most frightening takeaway for Marvel Studios. 

The success of Beauty and the Beast didn’t magically turn Dumbo into a hit, nor did Venom earning $854 million in 2018 help Morbius avoid its meme-worthy fate. Moreover, the commercial and critical successes of Wonder Woman ($821 million on a $150 million budget amid rave reviews and genuine pop culture impact), Aquaman ($1.1 billion/$165 million), Shazam! ($365 million/$90 million) and Joker ($1.1 billion with a few Oscars to boot) didn’t do much to prevent the well-reviewed Birds of Prey from flaming out. The rising tide doesn’t always lift every boat.

But this is a new phenomenon for Marvel Studios, especially on this scale. If the MCU is no longer an automatic A+ cinematic vacation destination, then the notion of movies starring new-to-cinema superheroes or even new-to-Marvel Studios heroes becomes much less appealing to general audiences.

If you could make God bleed, people will cease to believe in Him. 

I'd argue that The Marvels paid for the critical sins of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Thor: Love and Thunder. Had The Marvels been released in early 2023 instead of Ant-Man 3, would it have earned grosses at least on par with the Paul Rudd/Jonathan Majors sequel’s global cume ($471 million)? Perhaps, and that this MCU downturn seems to have peaked with a female ensemble flick helmed by a promising young Black female director is ironic to an astonishingly cruel degree. But I digress...

The Marvels will earn barely a quarter of Thor 4’s $761 million cume. It earned theatrical revenue just above Morbius ($168 million) and below The Flash ($270 million) and Dark Phoenix ($252 million). With Marvel/DC comic book movies now as execution dependent as any other tentpole, even a major MCU film can now bomb as hard as a non-MCU comic book superhero movie. It can even bomb as hard as the kind of franchise starter – like Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves ($208 million on a $150 million budget despite good reviews and strong buzz) – which previously floundered in the MCU’s overwhelming shadow.  

This year’s two blow-out superhero hits – Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 ($865 million) and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse ($690 million), were also top-tier crowd-pleasers. If Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is a halfway decent-sized holiday season hit -- and dammit, I still have faith -- it’ll be because A) audiences wanted to see another James Wan-directed and Jason Momoa-starring Aquaman movie and B) it delivered the Imax-friendly goods as an over-the-top under-the-sea action fantasy spectacular.  

While Shazam: Fury of the Gods and The Marvels were arguably enjoyable three-star popcorn flicks, merely good is no longer good enough. Even presuming strong global earnings for the Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman-starring Deadpool 3 next July, what happens when a film’s existence within the MCU is no longer an automatic event, and most of the films play as for-fans-only tentpoles? If the Ant-Man series is any indication, it is nothing good.  

What’s up, regular-sized man? 

Peyton Reed’s delightful Ant-Man and the Wasp earned “only” $620 million in the summer of 2018 – including a face-saving $125 million in China -- despite being opening after Black Panther ($1.35 billion) and Avengers: Infinity War ($2.05 billion). That showed that the MCU wave wouldn’t lift every boat as high as others. Moreover, it pointed to some growing pains once the MCU ran out of characters that most general audiences had at least somewhat heard of and suggested a ceiling as to how much value the MCU automatically brings to the table. 

Destin Daniel Cretton’s very good Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings earned $435 million in late 2021, while Chloé Zhao’s not-great (and weirdly generic) Eternals struggled to top $400 million just months later. Time will tell if those films earning less globally than even the first Ant-Man were correctly graded on a Covid curve or represented the “new normal” for “new” MCU movies.  

In terms of new movies centering on new-to-cinema characters, the blow-out success of James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy ($777 million worldwide in 2014 amid an admittedly less-packed-than-usual summer) may be an exception to the rule. Forget about the $1 billion-plus earnings for Black Panther and Captain Marvel, perhaps the $520 million cume (including $105 million from China) of the original Ant-Man in 2015 may become almost aspirational.

Nearly five years after the first Captain Marvel legged out to $1.13 billion partially by being an MCU movie, the biggest challenge for Marvel Studios may be a new normal whereby the MCU is no longer the automatic king of the blockbuster hill and (more importantly) a superhero movie no longer automatically gets a huge shot in the arm by virtue of being in the existing Marvel Cinematic Universe.  It’s not just a return to the early-to-mid 2010s during which Marvel/DC films thrived well below the $1 billion mark while other franchises (Planet of the Apes, Jurassic World, Star Wars, the James Bond series, etc.) earned respectively exceptional grosses. The MCU could become an increasingly for-fans-only franchise that struggles with appealing beyond the hardcore fanbase and has to more aggressively sell each installment as worthy on its own merits.

Some motherf***ers are always trying to ice skate uphill! 

The conventional wisdom is that the previously Fox-owned Marvel properties will eventually ride to the rescue. After all, that’s part of why Bob Iger, just before he stepped down (the first time) as CEO, spent $71 billion to acquire Fox Studios. However, that only works if those characters existing within the mainline MCU continuity still mean much to general audiences. If the MCU is no longer special, will audiences care about new incarnations of X-Men, a PG-13, Wesley Snipes-free Blade and the fourth attempt to turn Fantastic Four into a franchise?  If not, and The Marvels suggests a new normal where the MCU is no longer the coolest place to be, then these IP relaunches will just play to regular audiences as just another franchise reboot.  

Think, pardon the hyperbole, the Elizebeth Banks-directed Charlie’s Angels reboot or Alan Taylor’s misgotten Terminator Genisys. In terms of the wave of 2010s and 2020s relaunches, the likes of The Batman are the exception to the rule. Recall that the prequel X-Men cast (James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender, etc.) only commercially thrived when teamed with the original 2000s-era cast (Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Halle Berry, etc.) in the time-travel epic X-Men: Days of Future Past. Fox’s ensemble X-Men movies tumbled in the mid-2010s as Disney’s MCU soared. However, several years later, The Marvels’ buzzy mid-credits cameo was... Kelsey Grammer reprising as Beast from X-Men: The Last Stand. 

What that means is that the next batch of Marvel movies —even the next X-Men or the upcoming (Pedro Pascal-starring) Fantastic Four — may have to succeed and commercially justify themselves in spite of their MCU branding, not because of it. Marvel Studios will have to contrast new X-Men or Fantastic Four movies that are so theatrically appealing that their existence within the MCU is almost irrelevant. Coasting on “But it’s in the MCU now!” might have worked in 2018, but it clearly won’t in 2025.

I was meant to be new. I was meant to be beautiful.

The early 2020s were always going to be a little bumpy. Beyond Avengers: Endgame serves as a natural jumping-off point for general viewers, Marvel had to tough out the awkward readjustment phase that usually greets the fourth season of serialized TV shows like Glee, Smallville and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Less expected was Kevin Feige and friends having to navigate a global pandemic, China’s years-long soft ban on MCU movies (and overall indifference to Hollywood movies), the shocking death of presumed future-tense headliner Chadwick Boseman, a corporate-imposed overdose of Disney+ streaming shows, an overall industry-wide push toward streaming consumption and (however justified) a dual labor strike.  

And sure, I’ve long argued that the sky-high earnings for Black Panther and Captain Marvel – which were the first no-Tony Stark MCU movies to crack even $900 million – set too high a bar for the next batch of non-Avengers Marvel movies. We’re also just one year removed from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Thor: Love and Thunder and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness earning $760-$960 million worldwide with little-to-no money from China and Russia.

However, the next batch of non-Avengers MCU movies, especially after the by-itself-appealing Deadpool 3, rely heavily on the mere idea that they occur within the MCU. They are either centered on newer versions of fan favorites (think Anthony Mackie taking up Chris Evans’ mantle in Captain America: Brave New World or Florence Pugh’s Black Widow subbing for Scarlett Johansson as the head of an anti-hero team in Thunderbolts) or new-to-Marvel Studios characters like Reed Richards and Magneto now playing in the MCU sandbox.

After all, if the core notion of the MCU is no longer that much of an added value element, well, what’s the appeal?  If The Marvels’ miserable box office, strike-caused promotional challenges and mixed reviews notwithstanding, is any indication, the answer is... not much.