(CNN) – “The Marvels” debuted at No. 1 at the box office in its opening weekend but grossed just $47 million in the U.S., the studio estimated Sunday.
According to Comscore data, Marvel’s latest project is also the studio’s worst-performing project. That fell short of 2008’s The Incredible Hulk, the previous film that held the record, which opened with just over $55 million.
However, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) was still on the rise at the end of that decade, and since then, Marvel projects have built solid fan bases and achieved historic box office returns. In fact, The Marvels is only the third Marvel film to gross less than $60 million in its opening weekend, and the first since Ant-Man in 2015 with $57 million.
“Marvel has historically seen most of its films benefit from goodwill, and the nature of continued anticipation from chapter to chapter helps drive back-to-back box office returns,” said Shawn Robbins, chief analyst at BoxOffice Pro. “However, in a post-Infinity Saga world, their own standards place increasingly higher expectations on audiences.”
Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore, said the film’s screening could serve as a moment of reckoning and reflection for the superhero genre.
“Perhaps it’s time to take stock and learn lessons from other genres (like horror) and some of the notable superhero films that have taken risks (Logan, Deadpool, even Joker) and found both critical and financial success,” Dergarabedian said. “It may not be so much due to superhero fatigue, but rather that audiences are looking for a more unique take on this tried-and-true genre.”
The film also attempts to draw on storylines and characters from the numerous Marvel television series and miniseries on Disney+, such as “WandaVision” and “Ms. Marvel.” The slate of shows that Disney+ began producing in 2020 “failed to expand the brand,” Robbins said.
The weak opening weekend numbers for “The Marvels” are also symptomatic of the broader challenges the studio has faced in recent years, experts say. The saturation of the MCU, coupled with “an uneven reception of some of the most hyped (Marvel) films of recent years… and a stunted introduction to the multiverse storyline,” has “the level of urgency exhibited by the public , diminished.” “I felt for the franchise before,” Robbins added.
Marvel’s November release last year, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” which was also a sequel to an Infinity Saga-era film, grossed nearly four times its opening weekend with more than $181.3 million “The Marvels.” .
The weekend’s second-highest-grossing film was “Five Nights at Freddy’s” with $9 million, which ended its second week with an estimated total box office of about $127 million. However, the film, which is based on a video game, is also available online to Peacock subscribers, and streaming may put off some viewers.
“Today’s audience, with countless entertainment options on screens big and small, is looking for something unique, daring or just so well-written and entertaining that they can’t resist going to the cinema,” says Dergarabedian.