Disney Gives Up on 'The Marvels'

Disney seems to have given up hope that The Marvels will improve on its dismal box office performance.

The Mouse House, which owns Marvel studios, announced it would no longer be reporting the movie's global box office takings.

"With 'The Marvels' box office now winding down, we will stop weekend reporting of international/global grosses on this title," Disney announced on Sunday, per Variety.

The female-led film follows on from 2019's Captain Marvel and sees Brie Larson return as one of the strongest superheroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

By Marvel standards, The Marvels debuted with a paltry $46.1 million in its opening weekend at the domestic box office even though it was projected to make $60 million. It also ended up having the biggest second-weekend drop of any recent superhero movie.

The Marvels has now fallen to 11th place on the box office charts and so far has made a little more than $80 million in the U.S. At the global box office, it has made $116.3 million so far, based on figures on Box Office Mojo.

It will remain in theaters, but Disney's announcement indicates it doesn't expect The Marvels to experience a box office surge over the holidays, according to Variety.

Alexander Ross, a visiting researcher and fellow of Branford College at Yale, explained why the decision to stop reporting box office takings was unusual for Disney.

"Disney thought that the numerous franchises were financial evergreens. For decades, studios have stubbornly refused to comprehend that audiences want and demand variety," he told Newsweek. "They do not want to watch the same themes over and over again, without at least a modicum of major creative changes being acknowledged."

The movie also had the misfortune of being the first Marvel film to not make more than $100 million at the domestic box office, and it may become the lowest-earning Marvel film of all time. That honor previously went to 2008's The Incredible Hulk, which made $264 million at the time.

The Marvels predecessor, Captain Marvel made $153.4 million during its opening weekend, before closing with $1.13 billion worldwide.

Disney's CEO Bob Iger addressed The Marvels poor performance, blaming COVID for its misfortunes.

"'The Marvels' was shot during COVID," Iger said at the New York Times' DealBook Summit in November.

"There wasn't as much supervision on the set, so to speak, where we have executives [that are] really looking over what's being done day after day after day."

He also brought up the fact that as one of the most successful movie brands of all time— Marvel films have made a sum total of $29.8 billion across the world—there was a high pressure for the titles to perform well.

"We got to the point where if a film didn't do a billion dollars in global box office, we were disappointed," Iger said. "That's an unbelievably high standard, and I think we have to get more realistic."

The Marvels did, however, manage to break some positive records including the highest opening move by a Black female director, according to Forbes.

Director Nia DaCosta was the first Black woman to helm a MCU movie and previously became the first Black female director to have the top film at the box office after the first weekend with the 2021 horror film Candyman.

The Marvels also stars Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau, aka Photon, and Iman Vellani's Kamala Khan, aka Ms. Marvel. So far, it has made more than $197 million internationally and is currently sitting as the 23rd most profitable movie in the world this year.

Experts have also pointed to Marvel's diminishing returns at the box office as a sign of superhero fatigue. This year it has earned $1.51 billion earned at the box office, which is the lowest total since 2014, when it made $1.49 billion. But it only had two films in 2014, while there have been three this year, including Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.

"It can also be argued that Disney's considerable problems on several fronts have tainted and compromised what at one point seemed an untouchable brand that was squeaky clean, child- and family-friendly and relied on fantasy and escapist entertainment which could be enjoyed broadly by audiences," Ross explained.

"Disney must decide whether they are in the entertainment or social engineering business. Their efforts on the latter front likely have alienated millions who identify as centrist, moderates, conservative and Christian in entertainment values."

He added: "And, to insist that saturating the market with new installments in a superhero franchise is going to eventually work its magic again will be a very costly mistake from where a studio might not ever fully recover."

Update 12/06/23, 6:44 a.m ET: This article was updated to include Alexander Ross' comments.