It has been an “Annus horribilis” for Marvel in the movies. The studio has not been able to surf the wave of the end of the pandemic or continue to build on the success of ‘Avengers: Endgame’ and ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’. In fact, its 2023 has included a great box office failure, ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ and a new series almost completely ignored by the public, ‘Secret Invasion’. Now the studio has had its worst opening weekend with ‘The Marvels’ which It has raised just 88 and a half million dollars worldwide, against a budget of 220 million.
Adding advertising expenses, it is usually accepted that to recover the investment of a film of this style, it must raise double what the production cost. It is difficult to reach that information if the first weekend is not positive, and even more so if the critics and the public’s reaction do not accompany the film so that it grows with word of mouth, as if Disney’s ‘Elemental’ did. . The data is so bad that even ‘Shang Shi’ and ‘The Black Widow’ They grossed more in their first weekend, despite the fact that their premiere was in 2020.
Part of the problem is the excessive budget that even the studio’s smallest films currently have. In practice, adding almost 90 million dollars in the opening weekend is not a negligible figure, unless of course your film cost more than 200 million. When previous releases like ‘Captain America: The First Avenger’ and ‘Iron Man’, Marvel’s first big hits, cost less than 200 million.
It is a problem that a good part of the post-pandemic industry has faced: Anti-covid measures increased production budgets in 2020 and 2021, to this we must add the specific problem of the studio due to constant re-recordings to maintain the internal continuity of the universe. film. The latter has affected the 2023 superhero film releases, being a problem that increased the budgets of both ‘Flash’ as from ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’.
Now it will be interesting to know what happens with the studio’s next releases and especially with the character of Carol Danvers. Due to her name and importance in the comics, Captain Marvel was expected to fill the empty space left by Robert Downey Jr’s Tony Stark and Chris Evans’ Captain America, but after the poor commercial and critical reception of the new film (for now remains with an approval of only 62% according to the specialized portal Rotten Tomatoes), it would be normal to look for another face to star in the fight against Kang the emperor from the upcoming movies.
A FAILURE THAT SHOULD BE A PILLAR FOR THE STUDY
Part of the concern is that ‘The Marvels’ included several fundamental pieces for the future of the universe. From a post-credits scene that introduces classic X-Men characters, to clues about who may be part of the Avengers when the team reforms, it is evident that at least at some point in production It was expected that this would be an important film for the rest of the universe.
This has left several doubts in the air. From Variety speculating with a return of the first Marvel protagonists, including the possibility that the pause for the hollywood strike allowed them to rethink the way they construct some of their films, with ‘Blade’ and ‘Deadpool 3’ in particular functioning as experiments with a more adult rating and a bigger budget.
MARVEL AND ITS PLANS STILL IN THE AIR
At the moment Marvel has several fixed premieres on the grid for both Disney+ and the big screen. The problem is that of several of the releases that should arrive in 2024, the first image has not yet been seen, only ‘Deadpool 3’ has received a first promotional image with Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman wearing the classic costumes of their characters and the series. ‘Echo’, which presented its first preview, has given fans some appetizers.
With the end of ‘Loki’ leaving them without another of their most iconic characters by removing the god of discord played by Tom Hiddleston, the studio led by Kevin Feige will have reasons to set off alarm bells. It is true that a single success may be enough to put aside the studio’s crisis, but at least 2023 becomes the worst year in the studio’s history and the problems seem complicated to solve.
2023-11-14 05:06:44
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