Everyone knows that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has raged among the top numbers on the charts when it comes to the highest-grossing movies in the industry. Even now, it’s the only franchise with 3 movies listed among the top 10 highest-grossing films to date. But it feels like the fever is dying down, and even Fandango feels it.
As has been noted from the saga’s performance as of late, it is more or less continuing to cater to worldwide audiences and fans with remarkable content, like the recent Thunderbolts*. But despite the movies getting stellar reviews, it sounds like Marvel is pretty much losing its charm, with even Shawn Robbins confirming this fear to be true.
Thunderbolts* performance proves Marvel doesn’t hold its charm anymore
With Deadpool & Wolverine and Thunderbolts* showing a new day to the franchise after a bunch of mis-hits, it felt like the Marvel Cinematic Universe might finally gain that edge and climb back on top of the charts as a cinematic giant, clearing off all that talk about superhero-fatigue. But now it feels like that is hardly the case.
This is in the wake of the recently released Thunderbolts*. For one, it fared pretty fantastically among critics and fans worldwide, judging from its brilliant 88% critical and 93% general audiences on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, for sure. However, it failed to do the same when it came to its global box office performance.
Made on a budget of $180 million, it succeeded in grossing around $376.6 million from box offices worldwide (per The Numbers). But that’s hardly a commendable feat for a superhero franchise that is renowned for grossing multi-billion dollars at box offices globally. Even this Florence Pugh starrer needed to make around $425 million worldwide to break even, since it took closer to $100 million to market (via Variety).
That makes it clear that the MCU, unfortunately, does not hold the charm over its fans and audiences or the box offices anymore that it used to, unlike how it pretty much used to keep the theatres alive by keeping the viewers captivated and hooked for more.
Fandango’s movie analytics director says Marvel’s calculus has changed
For the record, among the highest-grossing movies of all time, the MCU has perfectly aced its game as it is the only franchise with three entries among the top 10 on the list. But despite being famed till a few years ago for being a mammoth franchise that made films that crossed the billion-dollar mark at the box office, it is now falling short.
Of course, this is especially evident after Thunderbolts* performance, which lost millions of dollars despite stunning reviews. Even Fandango’s movie analytics director, Shawn Robbins, confirmed these fears with his comment:
Marvel’s calculus has changed. We’re in a new era where not every Marvel movie is going to hit $1 billion.
Not to mention, since 2020, only six out of thirteen films from the saga have reached the half-billion mark. With that being put out there, it sounds like Hollywood’s consistent hit-maker, the MCU, which is also the highest-grossing film franchise in history with $31 billion across 36 movies, is struggling with serious commercial consistency.
Will it be able to hop back on track, with highly anticipated presumed hits like Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars on the way? Well, even when the franchise confirmed that these reformed baddies from Sebastian Stan’s flick will be returning, that’s hard to say. Guess only time can truly unveil the fate of the MCU.
Deadpool & Wolverine can currently be streamed on Disney+ while Thunderbolts* is yet to get an official release date for streaming and blu-ray/DVD release.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
