Highlights

  • Disney CEO Bob Iger blames lack of supervision during filming for The Marvels' poor box office performance.
  • Filmmaker Nia DaCosta claims bigotry, including sexism and racism, contributed to the film's failure.
  • The MCU's current reputation is more vulnerable than when Captain Marvel was released in 2019, and online hate towards the film may have affected its turnout.

As The Marvels' box office run winds down, Disney CEO Bob Iger has seemingly isolated one significant reason behind its abysmal performance in a likely effort to avoid a repeat incident.

Despite adding Iman Vellani and Teyonah Parris to the lead roles alongside Brie Larson's Carol Danvers, Captain Marvel 2 was never going to live up to the billion-dollar box office of its predecessor, Captain Marvel, which was released in 2019 at arguably the most auspicious time in the franchise’s 15-year history. However, the sequel would start to show worrying signs of underperformance right from the reaction to its first trailer. The Marvels box office debut set an all-time low for the MCU despite last-minute efforts by the cast to bring attention to its premiere as soon as the actors' strike was lifted.

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The prognosis on the sequel's theatrical run didn’t get any better as The Marvels faced a second-weekend drop worse than Morbius, seemingly dooming the film to fail with no recourse and starting a firestorm of discussion externally and internally. As a result, Disney CEO Iger seems to have formed his conclusions on why the film performed so poorly, a sentiment he briefly touched on in a recent interview. As reported by The Verge, Iger would comment on the film’s poor performance in a talk at The New York Times' DealBook Summit 2023, saying, "The Marvels was shot during Covid. There wasn’t as much supervision on the set, so to speak, where we have executives [that are] really looking over what’s being done day after day after day."

The Marvels Box Office Numbers

This diagnosis seems in line with common knowledge about The Marvels' production, which was troubled by several factors and cumulated in an extended production schedule with extensive reshoots that filmmaker Nia DaCosta wasn’t even in the country to oversee due to a schedule conflict. While it was initially counted against her, DaCosta has since come to her own defense and laid the blame for the film’s performance on bigotry of multiple sorts, notably sexism and racism. Her implied distance from the film’s failure seems to be the norm, as more so than anyone else, the issue is a problem for Disney’s CEO, as highlighted when Vellani spoke more on The Marvels' box office woes, stating that the film’s performance at the box office was not in her control and was a matter for Iger.

Iger's reckoning might be accurate, but it also doesn’t paint a complete picture of how the MCU's latest outing flopped, with The Marvels needing much more at the box office to break even, let alone turn a profit for the studio. The MCU faces a more uncertain and risky situation than when Captain Marvel premiered. In 2019, the franchise could do no wrong, and fans were rabid for any potential tie-in to Avengers: Endgame. It’s also difficult to argue that there wasn’t some online hate directed at the movie and those involved, which might have contributed to the low turnout alongside the lack of promotion the film received in the lead-up to its premiere.

While there’s a lot to address in the wake of The Marvels, more supervision is a good starting point, one way or another. The film might also get a break online before the year is done, as Aquaman 2's box-office debut could be worse than The Marvels. Marvel fans must wait and see whether an even bigger flop from the competition will take the heat off and if Iger's analysis of the situation is sufficient to fix the MCU's issues.

The Marvels is currently available in theaters.

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Source: The Verge