Tuesday # 1. THE MARVELS ($3.2M)

Feels very weak off of a $2.4M Monday. This could be under $1M dailies by Monday at this rate. I'm not convinced it will get into double digits this weekend either.

The movie is avalanching and I guess surpassing people's very low expectations isn't good enough enough to stop the downward momentum.

My $89.5M projection was based on a $4M Tuesday. I guess $90M is the new $400M+ at the MCU.

+39% seems like an ok increase (Freddy’s was +13% and Killers +25% of numbers released so far) but it started so low.

Mega-bomb.

This is going to make the all timer list with the Waterworlds, Battlefield Earth, John Carter level.

Even if it doesn't deserve it as bad preceeding movies/tv shows were a major factor, it's always going to be the film that broke MCU's streak.

5 day total for a $370M budgeted movie will be $51,784,180.

And this piece of shit shouldn't even be uttered in the same sentence as greats like Waterworld.

ERC is saying 1.7m wednesday and its losing tons of shows today to Hunger Games and Trolls. 2nd weekend drop in Flash's territory :-)

$53.5M 6 day total. Maybe $54.7M 1 week total?

Will this miss $85M?

Flash dropped -72.5% its second weekend. Made 66.9% of its total gross in its first 7 days.

If Marvels follows that would finish with $81.8M domestic off of a $46M weekend.

Of course summer vs fall are different seasons and Thanksgiving could help it get to $85M though its sad that $80M may not be a lock.

Why am I hoping for an MCU movie to leg its way to an $85M total? Something feels very amiss here.

The Marvels is an outlier amidst the MCU decline. I knew it would fare poorly because it carried baggage outside of ‘MCU is past its peak’. Still, I’m shocked by this underperformance.

First Wednesdays:

Birds of Prey - 1.82
The Marvels - 1.79
Terminator: Dark Fate - 1.70
Morbius - 1.66

Thursday is looking absolutely terrible. Its having way few shows and lost almost all Imax and most of PLF. it will be well below Eternals 3rd thursday. That added just under 40m after 3rd thursday. This movie will be lucky to add 35m after OW.

Deadline is saying 1.2m thursday for Marvels !!!

Still under $55M after a week.

For comparison, CM's opening day was $61,715,051 4 years ago. 1st Thursday was $9,248,435.

Marvels OW was 30.1% of Captain Marvel's 2019 OW.

Thursday for Marvels is just 13.0% of CM's Thursday. Down 87%!!!

This may hit single digits over the weekend and drop WORSE than The Flash's 72.5%.

That this could potentially be more of an embarassing run than The Flash is just sad.

China dropped 92.1% on friday, Not a shocker.

This is like reverse Top Gun Maverick. Sub 80 million?

I kept not wanting to say under $80M since it had a $46M OW it couldn't possibly miss $80M but I really don't know. Someone has to watch it Thanksgiving weekend?

If that -87% Thursday carries forward from Captain Marvel's 8th day (2nd Friday), Marvels is looking at a $2.47M Friday. That was with no new competition.

It can't possibly get that bad though? Or can it? Going from a $21.6M opening day to $2.47M Friday feels like outside the realm of possibility.

Mother of god time.

Endgame hype really was something. With it, we had a movie open six weeks earlier to adjusted nearly $530M. Without it, it's struggling to get to $80M. Of course larger MCU issues.

Captain Marvel $527,464,080 adjusted for inflation
Marvels $80M?

Even for massive box office standards, I don't think we've EVER seen anything like this from an unadjusted perspective at this scale. That would be a 15.2% retention rate admissions wise. Unadjusted maybe 18.7% retention rate.

Alice had a 23.1% unadjusted retention with $100M less a budget. This is the biggest % box office gross freefall of a mega blockbuster of all time ($300M+).

I did see Grease 2 made $15.2M vs Grease 1's $160.0M original release (9.5% retention) so there have been epic sequel flops of this nature adjusted wise were much worse than Marvels but for modern times I don't think anything comes close!

Grease 2 did not have the cast back and so its not a fair comp. Plus the movie did not require a sequel.

Some other franchises that had huge drops between sequels:

Exorcist
The Sting
Bruce Almighty
Happy Feet
Jurassic Park
xXx
Blair Witch
Basic Instinct
The Mask
Dumb and Dumber
American Graffiti
Godfather
Analyze That
Speed
Honey I Blew Up the Kids
Graffiti Bridge (sequel to Purple Rain)
The Ring
Jaws

So there is a Marvels precedent just a different scale of gross unadjusted and dropoffs.

The floor should’ve been 150m. The only way it makes any sense is seeing it as not a coincidence DC’s year was worse than Marvel’s. Some strange collective psychology going on that led to the inflation of superhero movies for frankly too long after the formula had gotten obvious, and then the bubble popping.

I'd be interested too in better understanding the psyche of moviegoers post pandemic that they got fed up this year especially. Wakanda did decently and was just 1 year out.

The oversaturation, TV shows, bad movies, unnecessary movies, bad special effects, commoditization of superheros, no longer having a fresh, novel feel, strike, pandemic backlog, release dates, etc.

There is in human history signs of artistic renaissances that have happened in the past following pandemics going back hundreds of years. People's yearning for experiences as seen with blockbuster concerts seem very in vogue.

Inflation also has made people even more selective of what they spend their time on. The bar just feels so much higher now for success which shows why Spider-verse and GOTG3 succeeded. Even GOTG3 underwhelmed OW but recovered.

OW wise, Spider-verse feels like the only positive superhero OW success story right out of the gate. It doubled it's predecessor's box office and will finish in the top 5 for the year.

Aquaman's performance is also hard to get much data from considering Christmas holidays buffet everything so won't necessarily be reflective on industry trends moving forward. DP also feels like a special case so will have to go to 2025 to really gauge the health of the genre.