Marvel might not be feeling quite so brave about Captain America: Brave New World right now after its second weekend in theaters suffered from a precipitous drop in ticket sales. And considering the latest humiliation heaped about the beleaguered would-be blockbuster, it’s no mystery what’s caused the box office to bottom out so quickly.
The numbers are in (via the extended Valentine’s Day/President’s Day weekend that served as its grand opening. That means the film has suffered a 68% plummet from one weekend to the next. That’s despite not encountering any stiff competition — #2 at the domestic box office was horror-comedy The Monkey, which swung its way to $14.2 million.
That may sound disastrous but, believe it or not, that’s not the biggest drop-off an MCU stinker has suffered from in recent years. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania lost a full 70% of ticket sales in its second weekend when it opened back in Feb. 2023, blowing a gasket in the MCU machine that it hasn’t really recovered from since. Not that such a drop was even uncommon before this. Both Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Thor: Love and Thunder likewise suffered from 67% drop-offs back in 2022.
That said, those latter two movies had heftier opening weekends to begin with — Love and Thunder‘s $760 million worldwide total is likely beyond Brave New World, and Doctor Strange 2‘s $956 million cume certainly is. Cap 4‘s global gross so far is around $289 million, but numbers are only going to decrease from here on out. With any luck, though, it should still cross the $400 million mark it reportedly needs to break even.
It’s no surprise that Brave New World has ended up facing a box office implosion that’s almost as bad as Quantumania and worse than Love and Thunder and Multiverse of Madness. the lowest-graded MCU movie to date.
At this point, Brave New World may be something of a lost cause, with Marvel now likely pinning its hopes on this May’s Thunderbolts* instead (although this July’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps is definitely the studio’s best shot at recapturing the glory of last year’s Deadpool & Wolverine). On the plus side, at least it has already ed what mega-bomb The Marvels managed in its entire theatrical run, despite facing an even more brutal Rotten Tomatoes score.
Like Thanos, a steep second-weekend slip at the box office was inevitable for Brave New World, although even Thanos would’ve been kinder — at least he only obliterates 50%, not 68%.
Published: Feb 24, 2025 10:01 am