ANALYSIS | Box Office Underperformance May “Snap” Marvel Out of Existence

Photo Credit: Marvel via Polygon

The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) first debuted in 2008 with the release of Iron Man, and after 15 years and earning more than $28 billion at the global box office, the franchise appears to be sinking under its own weight. 

Recent Marvel films, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and The Marvels both severely underperformed at the box office and received poor critic and audience ratings. This downturn is causing casual and dedicated fans alike to question the studio’s future. Will a global fatigue with superhero movies cause the end of the MCU or will Marvel find a way to keep dominating theatres?

The decline arguably started after the release of Avengers: Endgame, the highest grossing Marvel film of all time, which made 2.798 billion dollars.

Since the start of “Phase 4” of the MCU, Marvel has released nine films that have each globally grossed under $1 billion. The most recent movie on this downward trend is The Marvels, the long awaited sequel to Captain Marvel, which came out in 2019 to a global box office of around $1.1 billion. In comparison, the sequel has only made $197 million globally after being in theaters for four weeks, according to Variety, which is the lowest figure ever grossed by a Marvel film.

In addition to The Marvels, recent underperforming content released by Marvel in the past year includes the TV series Secret Invasion as well as Ant Man & the Wasp: Quantumania. According to Screen Rant, Secret Invasion fell short because of creative team disagreements and a mid-way change in writing staff. Ant Man & the Wasp: Quantumania, the 3rd installment in a series, appears to be failing due to overuse of CGI and confusing storylines, including the introduction of the quantum realm, as explained by Paul Tassi for Forbes.

According to The Direct, ratings from every major film website and company show a severe decline in rankings for Marvel movies, including among audiences. This has led to questions surrounding the decline of one of entertainment’s most popular action franchises, and whether Marvel will ever be able to recover.

Quantity over Quality 

Marvel's rapid expansion has been incredibly expedited, resulting in a staggering content release rate. From 2008 to 2018, Marvel produced 20 films. In the last four years, 2019 to 2023, they have released 13 movies. This accelerated production pace has significantly contributed to Marvel's financial success, but it has come at the cost of storyline quality. 

As the MCU continues to grow, it becomes oversaturated with content that lacks quality and direction, causing a decline in viewership. While the decrease in quality has become more noticeable in the last few years, many, including Oscar winning Director Martin Scorese, have never viewed Marvel as true cinema. Scorsese told Empire Magazine in 2019, “that’s not cinema. Honestly, the closest I can think of them… is theme parks.” He later explained this quote in an op-ed in The New York Times, saying that his reasoning was simple. “In many places around this country and around the world, franchise films are now your primary choice if you want to see something on the big screen… There’s worldwide audiovisual entertainment, and there’s cinema. They still overlap from time to time, but that’s becoming increasingly rare.” 

Superhero films have always followed the hero’s journey story arc and generally rely on simple, formulaic plot and lengthy action sequences to tell the story. The lack of resonance with audiences is just another aspect of “superhero fatigue,” a term that arguably sums up the potential cultural shift away from these types of stories. 

Movie theater success has usually been reserved for big action franchises like Marvel, Star Wars, and DC, but in the last year, films like Barbie and Oppenheimer have dominated theaters and became an even bigger cultural event then many of Marvel’s hits, showing that Marvel doesn’t have the control over theaters that they are known for.

Now that the Infinity Saga has ended, Marvel has been heavily relying on sequels, which can be a good way to expand a story, but the lack of originality and quality make these films seem unnecessary and even detrimental to the original film. Recent examples of this are The Marvels, Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantamania and Thor: Love and Thunder. 

When Disney CEO Bob Iger spoke on Marvel at the New York Times Annual DealBook summit, he defended recent sequels, but also spoke of future improvement. “I don't want to apologize for making sequels. Some of them have done extraordinarily well and they've been good films, too… We’re making a number of [sequels] now… but we will only greenlight a sequel if we believe the story that the creators want to tell is worth telling.”

Avengers: Endgame also saw the final appearance of staple heroes such as Captain America and Iron Man, leaving a void which the company is attempting to fill with anti-hero or side characters. In order to find a new “face of the Avengers,” Marvel has released films and series spotlighting individual characters. Often, these films, like Black Widow, perform worse in the global box office than films that include multiple staple characters.

“For The Fans”

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Marvel arguably has the biggest fan base of any franchise and has continued to draw people in following the release of Avengers: Infinity War, but now the recent addition of content is proving to be an ultimatum for casual fans.

With a cinematic universe that contains such a long and complex storyline, one should really watch all these films to truly understand the intertwined plotlines — or so says Marvel. But for many, this sounds like too big of an undertaking, and they aren’t wrong. With around two days worth of movies and TV shows, many people who aren’t diehard fans may be deterred by this massive library of content. 

Not only do new films build off of older stories, but Marvel’s newer content is often filled with “easter eggs” meant to share a hidden message or idea. This further isolates newer fans, polarizing viewers into categories of either diehard Marvel fans or viewers who dislike Marvel.

Scale

Introducing the idea of timelines and multiverses to increase scale may have lost viewers as the films have become more unrealistic and confusing. First the stories were set in a city, then a country, then the Earth, and finally in Endgame, the universe. With an increase in scale in each film, now Marvel continues finding new ways of upping the stakes and drawing in more attention. A failed attempt at this was the multiverse approach, which began with Spiderman: No Way Home and was amplified in Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness. 

These kinds of stories may be leading to severe fan burnout, causing once dedicated fans to grow tired of Marvel stories. Professor and pop culture expert Robert Thompson told CNBC that “The problem is that [Marvel] created a wonderful creature and now they don’t quite know how to feed it.”

Outliers 

During this period of decline, there have been a couple outliers. A major example of this is Spiderman: No Way Home, which earned $1.916 billion USD at the box office. This success could be credited to outside story development and production from Sony, who own the character Spiderman, as well as the inclusion of Spiderman characters from previous franchises.

Another Marvel project that stood out was the experimental TV show WandaVision, which was well received by fans and critics alike. According to Deadline, WandaVision was the most watched series premiere on Disney+ prior to the release of the series, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and received attention and praise for being unlike any other Marvel content. Despite only dropping episodes once a week, which contributed to low viewership, WandaVision put Marvel “back on top of the entertainment media food chain,” said film critic Scott Mendelson.

What’s Next for the MCU?

With 11 more films announced for release, Marvel shows no signs of stopping the constant outpour of content, with announcements of releases as far ahead as 2027. Loki recently dropped its season two finale, and is receiving lukewarm praise. The second season of the experimental animated series, What If..? drops Dec. 22. Madame Web, a film from Marvel and Sony, is set to release by February 2024, followed by the long-awaited Deadpool 3. While it’s hard to tell how content will be received by critics and audiences, the continuous stream doesn’t seem to be ending anytime soon. It currently appears that unless Marvel pivots and adjusts their content priorities, the MCU may continue its downward slide.