The Marvels’ $197m Box Office Run Officially Breaks The MCU’s 15-Year Record

Marvel Studios’ disappointing box office run has continued with 2023’s The Marvels, but the Phase 5 film has also broken a record not touched since the beginnings of the MCU in 2008. The sequel to 2019’s Captain Marvel released on November 10, 2023, bringing Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers, a.k.a. Captain Marvel, Iman Vellani’s Kamala Khan, a.k.a. Ms. Marvel, and Teyonah Parris’ Monica Rambeau, a.k.a. Photon, together for the first time on screen to battle Zawe Ashton’s villainous Dar-Benn. Despite a positive audience response, The Marvels has fallen victim to a poor box office turnout, and Disney has now confirmed it will stop reporting on the film’s ongoing box office numbers.

In a December 2023 report by Variety, which comments on the fact that Disney will no longer be reporting box office numbers for The Marvels, the Phase 5 team-up film is labeled as the “lowest-grossing MCU movie in history.” This record was previously held by 2008’s The Incredible Hulk, which grossed $264.8 million at the global box office. In comparison, as of December 4, 2023, The Marvels has totaled only $197 million, and previously saw a historic second-weekend drop of 78%, the largest for any Marvel movie. The Marvels’ abysmal performance at the box office has prompted Disney to halt reporting, marking a bitter end to The Marvels’ disappointing run.

Why The Marvels Box Office Is So Low For The MCU

The Marvels’ tragic box office performance has been a point of confusion for many viewers, as the general audience reception towards the Phase 5 film has been positive. Nevertheless, Disney CEO Bob Iger recently shared his own thoughts on why The Marvels has performed so terribly, speaking at the NYT Dealbook Summit in November 2023 (via The Verge). Iger suggested that The Marvels suffered because it was “shot during COVID,” before suggesting that “there wasn’t enough supervision on set [from executives].” These comments have caused controversy, as it seems Iger himself is ignoring the glaringly obvious, and appears to be attempting to shift the blame away from Disney.

2023’s WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes brought Hollywood to a halt, and meant that actors couldn’t promote their own projects. The SAG-AFTRA strike ended on November 9, 2023, so the fact that The Marvels’ actors couldn’t promote the film certainly harmed its box office performance. Evidently, these strikes were in response to studios not giving writers and actors fair working conditions and rights, yet Iger failed to take this into account when discussing The Marvels’ commercial performance. Akin to 2019’s Captain Marvel, it’s also possible The Marvels received undue hate simply because the project was led by women, which means the project achieved far less than it deserved.