Things were looking mighty grim for The Marvels when the first box office projections emerged, which posited that the long-awaited sequel to $1.1 billion hit Captain Marvel was in danger of securing the lowest opening weekend in Marvel Cinematic Universe history.
The Incredible Hulk has held onto that particular benchmark ever since it arrived just six weeks after the franchise launched with Iron Man back in the summer of 2008, which would have been nothing short of a catastrophic disaster on every level for a series that’s already in the midst of a significant downturn.
Thankfully – or not, depending on which camp you fall into – the estimates have improved exponentially, but that doesn’t mean they’re anywhere close to being what they realistically could and maybe should have been. The latest tracking puts The Marvels somewhere in the $70-80 million range, which is almost the very definition of solid-if-unspectacular as it relates to the MCU.
On the lower end that remains more than 50 percent behind Captain Marvel‘s $153 million bow, but if it falls below those numbers then it could end up as the first since Ant-Man way back in the summer of 2015 that fails to clear $70 million through its first three days. For a little perspective, 19 of the MCU’s 32 features to date have cleared $100 million right out of the gate, and if you exclude Phase One and the pandemic from the conversation, then none of them have failed to hit at least $75 million.
It’s an improvement for sure, but still not what Marvel would have had in mind.