Marvel Studios is praying that love will be in the air once Captain America: Brave New World enters theaters on Valentine’s Day, but it seems many movie-goers are going to be jilting this date with an Avenger.
It’s no secret that widespread interest in the MCU has decreased in recent years, but the studio’s decision to drop only a single film in 2024, in the form of Deadpool & Wolverine, was hoped to be the wave of the wand that would restore the franchise to its former, competition-crushing glory. With the Reynolds ‘n’ Jackman threequel taking home $1.3 billion at the end of the day, the stage was set for 2025’s typical trio of theatrical releases to bring in the big bucks like Robert Downey Jr. at the Avengers: Doomsday negotiating table.
As it happens, the first box office projections for February’s Captain America 4 are a little more modest than Marvel might’ve been banking on.
Brave New World box office projections are just a fraction of Deadpool 3 haul
A Brave New World is coming, but it’s same old, same old when it comes to Marvel’s middling box office performance. As per The Hollywood Reporter, Cap 4 is tracking for a domestic opening of over $90 million across the combined Valentine’s Day/President’s Day weekend. THR notes that this is a “promising” start for the Julius Onah-directed production — and it certain is in comparison to where the MCU was at before Deadpool & Wolverine. The Marvels, , only grossed just over double that sum across its entire theatrical run!
And yet $90 million doesn’t look quite so spiffy when you Deadpool 3 itself earned a staggering $211 million domestically in its own opening weekend. But, fine, you might consider that an unfair criticism considering DP3‘s summer tentpole placement and its phenomenal popularity. When stacked against its fellows in this mid-February release spot, then, BNW doesn’t shape up too badly, and yet it’s still on course to fall behind a true Marvel stinker.
With that $90 million projection, Cap 4 is looking to become the fifth highest President’s Day opening weekend, not adjusted for inflation, trailing Black Panther ($242 million), the OG Deadpool ($152 million), Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania ($120 million) and Fifty Shades of Grey ($93 million). Landing a spot in this niche top five wouldn’t be too shabby, but it would be somewhat galling for a brand-new Captain America movie to have a softer launch than the most notorious MCU entry of them all. Not to mention something as tacky and notorious as Fifty Shades.
Marvel fans have been concerned about this one for a while, from the film’s arduous post-production process to the second coming of The Winter Soldier. Still, MCU loyalists are at least thinking about the film to some degree, whereas it looks like Marvel may need more of the general audience to realize it’s about to unleash a sequel to one of its most beloved and successful trilogies.
Published: Jan 24, 2025 01:16 pm