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The Marvels may have been a box-office disappointment for the superhero studio, Marvel, but the feature film did break one record.
The Marvels has marked the biggest ever opening weekend for a film made by a Black female director at $110 million, according to Forbes.
Nia DaCosta helmed The Marvels and is no stranger to breaking box-office records. She 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. She was also the first Black woman to direct a Marvel Cinematic Universe movie.
Starring Brie Larson reprising her role as Captain Marvel, the film made $46.1 million at its opening weekend at the domestic box office despite being projected to make $60 million. It ended up having the biggest second-weekend drop of any recent superhero movie.
Since premiering on November 8, The Marvels has gone on to make more than $76 million at the U.S. box office, according to Box Office Mojo.
Along with Larson, the movie also stars Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau, aka Photon, and Iman Vellani's Kamala Khan, aka Ms. Marvel. So far, it has made close to $189 million at the global box office. It is currently sitting as the 25th most profitable movie of 2023 so far.
This pales in comparison to Captain Marvel which made $153.4 million during its opening weekend before amassing $1.13 billion worldwide upon its release in 2019.
It must be noted that Larson debuted as Captain Marvel one month before The Avengers: Endgame's premiere—at the height of the Disney-owned studio's success—a critical juncture for the MCU's Thanos-centric storyline. Endgame felt like the end of an era, making the Captain Marvel release all the more important.
And it might not be the quality of the film, which has received several positive reviews, that affected the poor box-office performance, but rather an emerging trend for Marvel movies.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania came out in February and made $467 million worldwide, a paltry amount compared to other MCU movies. Marvel currently has four movies in the top 10 highest grossing films of all time globally.
Some analysts have blamed superhero fatigue and internal issues at Marvel for the recent box-office performances.
"With familiarity breeds contempt and when Marvel was only putting out two to three movies per year, fans were much more excited to see the next one in theaters because of all the months of anticipation between films," Marvel megafan Chris "Supafly" Markland told Newsweek in November.
He added Marvel's downturn could be attributed to "a death by a thousand cuts," and "pumping out" content so quickly there's less quality control then before.
But despite its recent troubles, Markland argued Marvel was still doing well.
"I think it's easy for longtime MCU fans to take this franchise for granted, but the fact still remains that it's the most profitable franchise in film history," he said.
"For better or worse, they've changed the trajectory of filmmaking as we know it and has given me scenes from the comics I read as a child that I never dreamed I'd ever get to see in live action."
About the writer
Shannon Power is a Greek-Australian reporter, but now calls London home. They have worked as across three continents in print, ... Read more