Captain America: Brave New World Box Office Not Looking Good
Marvel’s next movie is predicted to pull in rookie numbers. Captain America: Brave New World, the first MCU entry since Deadpool & Wolverine (unless you count Disney+ fare like Agatha All Along), has had a rocky production, one in which the entire movie was essentially remade at least once, plus several other bouts of reshoots, and all of its test screenings have reportedly been abysmal. After two postponements, it’s finally going to arrive in theaters on February 14, 2025, with what is surely a hefty budget, with numbers that reached $375 million before the last two rounds of reshoots, meaning this movie has to have cost at least $400 million before marketing and whatnot. And given the overall decline in Marvel box office (Deadpool & Wolverine notwithstanding) and a seemingly growing apathy towards a franchise that has lost almost all of its big stars and characters, struggles to make a decent film anymore, and generally feels aimless, most didn’t have high hopes that Brave New World would be the success it needed to be to justify that ridiculous budget.
And it looks like that was an accurate assessment. Deadline reports that the tracking service Quorum – which they point out was right about the huge opening for Deadpool & Wolverine – projects that Captain America: Brave New World will make $86-95 million in its first three days. Since it’s opening on President’s Day weekend, Deadline observes that it will almost certainly exceed $100 million after that Monday if these numbers prove accurate. And while anything above The Marvels’ dismal opening will likely be celebrated as a massive win for Marvel, the truth is that a premiere like that is not good at all. First of all, the Deadline article lists the numbers for some other Marvel movies that opened on President’s Day weekend, and all of them made more money than Quorum is projecting Brave New World to make: Deadpool, with $132.4 million; Black Panther, with $202 million; and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, with $106.1 million. And those are the three-day totals. Deadpool and Black Panther were admittedly big hits, but Quantumania was a huge embarrassment for Marvel, and Brave New World is expected to underperform that. Comparatively speaking, it’s more in line with Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which made $95 million in its opening weekend… eleven years ago; The Winter Soldier’s opening weekend would have been $123.5 million in 2024 (there’s no inflation adjustment for 2025 yet).
And how well do you think that opening weekend box office will hold? Marvel films have been dropping like rocks after their opening weekends lately, with only, once again, Deadpool & Wolverine and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 hanging on. That was due to good word-of-mouth, which propelled Guardians 3 well past expectations and turned Deadpool & Wolverine into a juggernaut. Based on the poor test screenings and the constant reshoots, I don’t see Captain America: Brave New World getting the same kind of traction. You also have to factor in the untested nature of the lead character; you can plaster the name Captain America on the film as much as you want, but this movie is about Sam Wilson, not Steve Rogers, and Sam Wilson has only been a supporting character outside of Disney+ so far. Deadpool & Wolverine and Guardians 3 had characters who were already the leads in previous movies and were beloved by fans. Are people going to line up to see Sam Wilson the same way they did for Deadpool, Wolverine, and Star-Lord? And considering what an obnoxious scold Marvel turned Sam into for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, are the ones who do going to come back for more? Spending $400 million on a movie like this is insane, especially when one of its selling points is supposed to be how grounded it is, like The Winter Soldier, which cost less than half as much to make. Deadpool & Wolverine was a brief respite, but Marvel’s not out of the financial woods yet.
Let us know what you think of the Captain America: Brave New World box office projections in the comments!
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