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  • ‘The Marvels’ Debuts With Disappointing $110M Worldwide

    ‘The Marvels’ Debuts With Disappointing $110M Worldwide

    The Marvels is off to a slower start across all markets as the film has pulled in $63.3M internationally and a disappointing $47M domestically. That puts the latest Marvel Cinematic Universe outing at a total opening weekend of $110.3M, which marks the lowest the franchise has ever faced. Sadly, the film hasn’t had any momentum throughout the weekend and ended up on the lower end of Saturday’s estimates, but it hasn’t crashed as hard as some expected going in with the Thursday preview numbers.

    Still, it’s a far cry from the $70M predicted a few weeks ago and initially set for around $80M worldwide. So, we didn’t quite make the jump to the $140M. The social scores seem quite decent but the lack of urgency to check out the movie in theaters is hurting it. That B CinemaScore is not helping matters and it seems the film might fizzle out around the same The Flash did earlier in the year; though that had the promotion from its cast marking this a very different situation.

    Variety states that audiences “flat-out rejected” the film but don’t back it up on why this is a fact. However, the problem remains with its $220M budget and $100M marketing costs (likely cheaper given they didn’t have to organize a lot for the cast involved). Though Variety also seems to have a bone to pick with the studio ever since they dropped that debunked article. Though as CNBC points out there’s hope that legs could still carry the film closer to breaking even with the Thanksgiving holidays don’t he horizon.

    Despite posting the lowest domestic debut for the MCU, ‘The Marvels’ proved once again the importance of the international marketplace for the Marvel brand. The film will now rely on Thanksgiving holiday corridor moviegoing to help move the big budget superhero film closer to profitability and help to determine the film’s ultimate success at the box office.

    Paul Dergarabedian, Senior Media Analyst (Comscore)

    One thing is clear: there’s a lot of debate online on what exactly happened here. While it got the usual lower CinemaScore, online chatter has been on the uprise since the film was released in theaters. The fact that they had a last-minute debut for Brie Larson on a talk show the day after release isn’t going to randomly sway things even if some are pointing to “promotion taking place anyway.” There’s also the discussion of “being good” not being enough for a film to do well at the box office nowadays as they have become more selective.

    Some are pointing to Oppenheimer and Barbie taking place during the strikes and making bank, but those films were released on July 21st and the SAG AFTRA strike started on July 14th. So, they technically had all the momentum already built up going into the release, and isn’t a fair comparison given that the actors were only able to start after it was in cinemas. Just odd to see that comparison as momentum was definitely carried into the film once it was made available.

    There’s also the streaming factor that has plagued Marvel releases since Disney trained audiences they can always wait 45 days before checking it out if it’s not a “must-see” event similar to Barbenheimer or Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. There has been a slow pushback on it but it’ll take time to allow audiences to adapt to this new normal once again. Something highlighted by Five Nights at Freddy’s continuing to just drop as fast it can at the box office with another 53% drop domestically, but it still managed to pass the $250M mark internationally.

    One thing that also stands out is that the box office is in such a state that even with such a disappointing opening for Marvel’s standards it remains at the top spot given how low others are performing. As mentioned in the last analysis, the “bomb” that was Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania also remains the tenth highest-grossing film of the year. It’ll likely be analyzed for many years to come and the big question is what is Marvel’s future once 2024 rolls around.

    CNBC’s article shares a curious statement from Shawn Robbins, chief analyst at BoxOffice.com, that highlights that as much as this snag will hurt Marvel Studios: it may be just the changing point from everything it had to endure moving forward:

    If any IP has the depth and capability to do that, it’s Marvel under the leadership of Kevin Feige and his teams. This is certainly a crossroads moment from a creative and business standpoint. Perhaps the relative slowdown in Marvel content next year will provide a healthy and necessary buffer for the studio, for Disney, and for audiences.

    Shawn Robbins

    Source: Deadline, Variety

  • ‘The Marvels’ Heading for MCU’s Worst Opening Weekend

    It’s been an uphill battle for the MCU throughout the last few years. Negative consent has started arousing a certain perception throughout 2023 which has been quite damaging overall with only a few releases making bank and the blockbuster releases burning up before they even got a chance. Continuing that trend is Marvel Studios’ latest The Marvels.

    The film has pulled in $21.5M on its Friday and is likely heading to a weekend gross of $47M to $52M. With a B CinemaScore, it likely is looking at a below $50M. That is slightly higher than the lowest estimate from Box Office Pro, which was at around $45M but there are a lot of different factors at play here (some even believed it would be as low as $35M as the tracking on this film was quite chaotic in the last few weeks).

    Deadline makes a strong case that this isn’t really the fatigue discussion, as people will watch a film they believe is going to be great; Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania still had a grand opening all things considered but lost its legs quickly but it remains in the Top 10 for 2023 (which says a lot about the year). And there’s the entire discussion surrounding Disney’s strong pre-pandemic push to promote its streaming service by milking its cash cow as dry as it could. The pandemic certainly didn’t help.

    In addition, this release isn’t like Captain Marvel which dropped between two of the biggest Avengers releases of the years. I do believe that the assessment of Killers of the Flower Moon’s low box office shouldn’t still be assessed if $200M is truly worth to “advertise” a film on a streaming service while making an additional buck, especially given any MCU film also benefited from a strong streaming surge once available. So, the discussion in those comparisons can be twisted however one would want depending on the result one is looking for, as what is or isn’t successful on streaming is still the biggest question mark in the industry.

    It’s a shame though to see the film open this low given the fun it provides. Most are pointing to a weak word-of-mouth with the B rating but one could wonder if Five Nights at Freddy’s A- rating is also bloated by fans making sure they check out the first installment that had a very impressive $80M opening but quickly floundered the week after. Plus, that film unlike The Marvels didn’t really require much promotion from its cast given it’s a first-time adaptation of a very young audience.

    There’s also the depressing aspect of the current climate that the film releases. Brie Larson and the “Captain Marvel” brand has been hounded ever since that film released and was the butt of many people’s jokes online. So, a negative reception existed, and with a seemingly lack of advertising push in its key demographics but didn’t go out of its way to reach the other side to attract the actual core demographic of this film. Though, the anti-Disney and anti-Marvel sentiment throughout the year also definitely is showing its fangs.

    Is it the end of Marvel? Probably not as next year’s release schedule has been drastically cut down and likely something that was going to happen eventually anyway. One thing is for sure: Marvel Studios is going to be looking internally to restructure their approach which already started with Marvel Spotlight to create a bigger distinction between releases (or more likely their Disney+ outings).

    What is a bit bizarre is the current “downward trend” some are pointing out like Variety, who released an article that actually got debunked by quite a few in the past few weeks but also highlights the way MCU is being discussed. The only “soft” spot it had was during the pandemic when it made more money than most releases and this is the first below $100M opening in a long time for the brand. The bigger question is this going to be a one-time low before a swing back up or just the baseline for future entries needing lower budgets.

    Source: The Hollywood Reporter, Box Office Pro, Deadline, The Numbers, Variety

  • ‘The Marvels’ Uncanny Post-Credit Scene’s Explained

    ‘The Marvels’ Uncanny Post-Credit Scene’s Explained

    By now, even if you haven’t seen the movie it’s likely you’ve heard about the beastly post-credit scene of The Marvels. The scene brought Monica Rambeau face-to-face with an alternate reality variant of her mother, Maria, and a very familiar furry friend. Despite it being clear who everyone is, there’s no clarity about exactly where in the multiverse she is, leaving the audience just as confused as Monica. While we can’t offer any clarity on that, we can look to the comics for a little help about what might have gone down in that universe before her arrival.

    After Kelsey Grammar’s Beast is revealed, a wider look at the facility in which Monica is recovering makes it clear that she’s in an X-Men facility. It’s also revealed that in this universe, Maria is a fully costumed superhero. While we’ve seen that idea fleshed out once before in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, it’s a little different here as Beast refers to her as Binary and she’s wearing quite a different costume. Given what we know, it seems that this post-credit scene is very heavily influenced by longtime Marvel Comics writer Chris Claremont’s beloved Uncanny X-Men run.

    From 1975 through 1991, Claremont gave new life to the X-Men and made them one of Marvel Comics premier teams. In 1982, Claremont wrote Carol Danvers into Uncanny X-Men #158, kicking off a long run of her appearing in his X-book and even becoming an honorary member of the team. Claremont remade Danvers, who had never been anywhere near as fully realized as she was during her time in his books. In Uncanny X-Men #164, Danvers–with a brand new power set, took the name Binary.

    While not everything lines up perfectly, the universe in which Monica wakes up at the end of The Marvels may be one in which events much like those from Claremont’s Uncanny X-Men have unfolded. Just how that will impact the future of MCU, if at all, remains to be seen but it would be great to see nods to the Shi’ar space opera, Rogue’s interesting history with Carol (which would probably be with Maria, instead) or even the Morlocks pop up the next time we see that universe on screen.

  • REVIEW: ‘Loki’ Season 2 Finale

    REVIEW: ‘Loki’ Season 2 Finale

    The reinvention of the God of Lies is complete. With a thrilling and satisfying finale to the second season of Loki, Tom Hiddleston has roundly addressed critics’ concerns (including my own) about how much could possibly have been left in the tank for a character who had already done so much. Hiddleston’s dedication to the character, a fantastic creative team that was fully dedicated to some ridiculous sci-fi concepts and held fast to their vision and a deep cast combined to provide 12 incredible episodes of streaming television including an astounding season (and likely series) finale.

    Though it won’t be the last time we see Loki, “Glorious Purpose” was a wonderfully fitting bookend to the entire series (you’ll recall that the first episode of the series was also entitled “Glorious Purpose”). Loki’s journey into mystery led him right back to where Season 1 ended and put him face to face once again with He Who Remains who, sort of unsurprisingly, revealed that every step of said journey–including his own “death” and all the crazy bits that went on in Season 2–where engineered by him. Having spent centuries trying to save every reality and totally recreating himself along the way, Loki’s refusal to take He Who Remains final offer as an answer leads him to make a choice that nobody, including himself, could have ever predicted. No longer the conqueror or mischief maker, Loki reanimates the dead branches of reality and sets himself about the endless task of giving life to others at the expense of his own freedom. Free will outside of the boundaries set by He Who Remains.

    (L-R): Owen Wilson as Mobius, Wunmi Mosaku as Hunter B-15, Eugene Cordero as Casey, Sophia Di Martino as Sylvie, Ke Huy Quan as O.B., and Tom Hiddleston as Loki in Marvel Studios’ LOKI, Season 2, exclusively on Disney+. Photo by Gareth Gatrell. © 2023 MARVEL.

    As a finale to a season and the series, the episode lands because it ties up so many of the series’ threads nearly as neatly as Loki ties together the branched timelines. Loki is the MCU’s longest experiment with longform narration to date and it’s a tall task for any writing room to keep everything together over the course of nearly 12 hours of a series. Thankfully despite series creator Michael Waldron moving on, the studio maintained continuity by handing the keys to the show to one of Season 1’s most key contributors, Eric Martin. Resultant of that, Season 2 picked up where Season 1 left off, took the audience on a wild romp and then dropped them right back off in a familiar place with the main character in a familiar predicament.

    For as complicated as the sci-fi weirdness of the show seemed to be, in the end, Loki remained a fairly straightforward character study of one of the MCU’s greatest characters. And powered by one of the MCU’s greatest talents in Hiddleston, Loki became the warm light for all mankind to share. In that regard, Loki was more than just a series that maintained continuity over 12 episodes; it was a reverential ode to every beat that has made the character so popular since he first appeared in 2011’s Thor. In just about every way, Loki is the MCU’s “Breaking Good” full of all the things that make stories great. Perhaps, in his big chair at the end of time, this was a story written by the God of Stories himself.

  • Marvel Studios Overhauls Its Theatrical Slate

    Marvel Studios Overhauls Its Theatrical Slate

    Less than 24 hours after the Screen Actors Guild reached a settlement to end their strike, Disney made several adjustments to Marvel Studios upcoming theatrical slate. While the changes will make 2024 pretty barren, 2025 looks to be a strong year for the studio.

    As star Ryan Reynolds shared earlier in the day, the untitled Deadpool movie will hit theaters in the Summer of 2024, moving from May 3rd to July 26th. Two films that were still clinging to hopes of a 2024 release are no officially slated for 2025. Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts are headed to theaters on February 14th, 2025 and July 25th, 2025, respectively, and will surround Fantastic Four which is still slated for a May 2, 2025 debut. Finally, Blade, which has seen significant delays as the creative team has undergone multiple changes, is not set for a November 7th, 2025 release.

    Like 2025, 2026 is set to see four theatrical releases. Marvel Studios is holding dates in February, July and November for untitled films and Avengers: The Kang Dynasty remains on the slate for a May 3, 2025 drop.

  • Mini Book Review: ‘Super Boba Cafe’ by Nidhi Chanani

    Mini Book Review: ‘Super Boba Cafe’ by Nidhi Chanani

    Super Boba Café by Nidhi Chanani


    Thank you to Amulet Books for a free review copy of this one.

    SUPER BOBA CAFE is a cute middle-grade graphic novel. It’s a strange little book with a great message at its core. The story follows 13-year-old Aria as she spends the summer in San Francisco visiting her grandmother, Jing Li. She runs a boba cafe that is home to a cat named Bao and fails to bring in many customers, until Aria sets out to fix her grandmother’s marketing issues. When Bao unexpectedly gives birth to eight kitties, Aria finds the perfect solution – or so she thinks – by turning the boba cafe into a kitten cafe. But what she doesn’t know is that her grandmother is harboring a secret that can impact the entire city.

    The strongest aspect of SUPER BOBA CAFE is admittedly its artwork. The characters are drawn well, and the scenery is wonderfully constructed. Unfortunately, the story isn’t nearly as strong. That, of course, isn’t to say it’s not enjoyable – it is. The book is out there, but Aria’s storyline is one that is something many young adults experience daily. It’s an important lesson about trust, using the internet, and understanding how cruel others can be.

    SUPER BOBA CAFE is an enjoyable book that is a must-read for young adults. At the center of its chaotic storyline is a story with plenty of heart and a lesson all kids should learn.



    View all my reviews

  • Merged Disney+ and Hulu Beta App to Launch Next Month

    Merged Disney+ and Hulu Beta App to Launch Next Month

    The time has finally come. Since the first merger of STAR as its international replacement for Hulu originals on Disney+ in key markets, the company has finally decided to pay up the rest to take complete control of the streaming service. Disney will purchase the remaining share from Comcast for $8.61B and it seems they already have set their eyes on how to best utilize it.

    In a statement, Disney CEO Bob Iger has highlighted their goal of establishing a unified app for the domestic market with a beta version already expected to launch in December. The official launch is set for Spring 2024 and it’s uncertain if this domestic rollout will also come with a new design for Disney+ moving forward.

    We remain on track to roll out a unified one-app experience domestically.

    Bob Iger

    Out of all the apps, Disney+ would do good with a design overhaul, and integrating Hulu may be the best direction to take it instead of waiting out a redesign that is more costly down the line. One aspect of this move is also to ensure an increased engagement for the app and build up greater ad revenue and lower churn rate of viewers. So, we’ll get a better feeling of what the streaming future for Disney looks like once the beta is first revealed.

    Source: Variety

  • Kevin Feige Addresses Harry Styles’ MCU Future

    Kevin Feige Addresses Harry Styles’ MCU Future

    It’s been just over two years since a post-credit scene from Eternals revealed Harry Styles and Patton Oswalt had joined the MCU as Starfox and Pip the Troll, respectively. As is often the case with Marvel Studios, the appearance of the two came with the unspoken promise of further adventures which, to date, have yet to occur or even be addressed. Eternals wasn’t especially well-received and between some changes to the inner workings at Marvel Studios and a pair of strikes that have greatly impacted production, there’s hardly been a deluge of news on future projects which has left some fans asking what future, if any, Styles’ character might have.

    During the premiere of The Marvels, ET asked Marvel Studios One Above All, Kevin Feige, if he could shed some light on when fans might see Starfox again.

    “He’s excited. We’re excited. We will see,” said Feige of Styles. “You introduce a lot of new characters in a lot of movies and a lot of tags. Where do the tag folk reappear? That’s a good question.“

    While it’s not the first time Feige has addressed when Styles might reappear, he’s still not giving much of an answer here. As is the case with most of the Eternals, there’s no clear-cut path for Starfox to have further adventures within in the ongoing Multiverse Saga. Many of the character’s common comic book companions are no longer involved in the MCU which means like many characters who have made the jump from page to screen, whatever adventures await Starfox are likely to be original ones. Additionally, it’s very likely that the MCU version will mostly be Starfox in name only as he’ll almost certainly undergo major changes from his troublesome comic book counterpart.

  • Early Reactions Call ‘The Marvels’ “Crazy” and a Fun Time at the Movies, Praise Iman Vellani

    Early Reactions Call ‘The Marvels’ “Crazy” and a Fun Time at the Movies, Praise Iman Vellani

    Ahead of its wide release this weekend, The Marvels screened for select members of the media across the globe and at its own red carpet premiere yesterday. While the film is currently tracking to have a woeful opening weekend, there’s some hope that positive reviews and word of mouth may give it a boost. While full reviews are embargoed a bit longer, first reactions have hit social media and are–to nobody’s surprise–overwhelmingly positive.

    The short run time is a big seller…

    One of the dumbest social media trends of our time is to prejudge projects based on their runtime. The Marvels is officially the shortest entry in the MCU’s long history…and nobody that has seen it is complaining.

    Iman Vellani is the truth…

    Anyone who watched Marvel Studios Disney Plus streaming series Ms. Marvel knows how wonderful Iman Vellani was as Kamala Khan. It seems nothing has changed on that front.

    https://twitter.com/heylarry/status/1722120709680361743

    There’s some crazy surprises…

    Apparently, director Nia DaCosta understood the assignment and made sure to pack the short runtime with a wild surprise or two.

    https://twitter.com/heylarry/status/1722121587342594065

    It’s not all good….

    Though it sounds like it’s no fault of Zawe Ashton’s, the film’s villain, Dar-Benn, seems to be a Phase 2 level miss.

  • Wes Ball to Direct Live-Action Adaptation of ‘The Legend of Zelda’

    Wes Ball to Direct Live-Action Adaptation of ‘The Legend of Zelda’

    You read that right, it has finally been announced. Nintendo is developing a live-action adaptation of The Legend of Zelda. After the success of their animated adaptation of Super Mario Bros. many expected them to stick to their deal with Illumination. Yet, it seems they are going live-action with one major Nintendo franchise after all.

    In the official announcement, the film will be produced by Shigeru Miyamoto and Avi Arad, who is most famous for his work on the Spider-Man films. It seems they also have a director in Maze Runner’s Wes Ball, whose next major release Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes just recently got its first trailer.

    According to Miyamoto, he’s already been working on this adaptation for many years with Avi Arad and it is now officially starting development. So, this isn’t a first kick-off announcement but the confirmation that they are getting ready to start progressing on the project. However, they still highlight that it’ll take time until it is finished and until we’ll likely get the next update on the film.

    Source: Nintendo, Twitter