It took just over a week for ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ to already be among the 10 highest-grossing films of 2022. After its powerful start, it already occupies eighth place with 546 million dollars and is sure to climb more positions. The problem is that this weekend has also once again made clear one of the big problems of Phase 4 of Marvel: how quickly their numbers at the box office are dwindling.
First signs of decline?
To put it in perspective, the record for the largest drop from the first weekend to the second in the United States for a Marvel movie of the previous three Marvel phases was set by ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ with a drop of 62.2%. . And only three other films (‘The Incredible Hulk’, ‘Captain America: The First Avenger’ and ‘And-Man and the Wasp’) had broken the 60% barrier. In Phase 4, just the opposite happens.all but one film has far exceeded that percentage.
‘Black Widow’ collapsed 68%, ‘Eternals’ 62%, ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ 67%, ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’ 67% and ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ ‘ 68%. The only one that was saved was ‘Shang-Chi and the legend of the ten rings’ with a drop of 54%, but in return, he did not have a particularly dazzling debut either.
In addition, it must also be taken into account that, with the exception of ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’, they all fell short of expectations at the end of their run in theaters, and with ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ as well it is practically impossible for it to exceed or be close to the numbers marked by the first installment, which totaled 1,346 million in 2018. In fact, His great objective to this day continues to be to overcome the mythical barrier of 1,000 million, something that so far only 51 films have achieved. 10 of them are from Marvel, but from Phase 4 only ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ has made it, and there were other key important factors in it.
That does not mean that the MCU has lost favor with the public, but it is clear that interest has eroded after the milestone that was ‘Avengers: Endgame’. His films are almost always great successes -it is difficult to consider ‘Black Widow’ or ‘Eternals’ as such-, but before it was practically impossible for anyone to face them and now they lose steam faster. For example, this year the two highest grossing movies are ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ and ‘Jurassic World: Dominion’. And also ‘Avatar: The Sense of Water’ is just around the corner…
Whether due to the fact that everyone already knows that in two months or less it will be available on Disney+, because there are fans who are somewhat disenchanted with the path that Marvel is following or because of the overdose of the last two years, the truth is that it is the first time a small sign of decay is detected. It’s nothing to worry about right now, but Don’t rest on your laurels…
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