As recently as a few weeks ago, analysts were predicting that the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Eternals stood a great chance of being the pandemic’s first movie to debut to at least $100 million at the domestic box office.
The projections weren’t without merit, either; October was the most lucrative month theaters had seen since January 2020, and the three highest-grossing titles of the year in the United States are all Marvel Comics adaptations, leading to much optimism that the cosmic superhero epic could outstrip Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Black Widow.
However, expectations have been tempered by the reviews, where Eternals comfortably ranks as the lowest-rated installment in the MCU on Rotten Tomatoes, with the score having dropped to 54% at the time of writing. As a result, Deadline reports that it’s now on track for a $75 million bow, which is still hugely impressive by the standards of the time.
A 157-minute running time also lessens the number of screenings per day, so $75 million isn’t a bad result by any means considering how the hype and anticipation has turned into a shrug of apathy in many quarters. Of course, Eternals could always end up going higher or lower, but we won’t get a better idea until the Friday numbers come in.