Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania suffered the biggest second-week drop for any Marvel Studios movie, prompting a lot of debate about the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Is superhero fatigue finally setting in? Does it signify a larger problem with the MCU as a whole? Or is it simply a case of audiences not responding very well to a critically-panned movie?
Negative reviews and a significant box office dip this early on would seem like cause for concern - especially for a film that's kick-starting a new Phase of this shared world - but should the studio be worried?
“As second weekend drops go, anything in the 70% realm is pretty significant,” says senior Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian (via Variety). “But movies that open with over $100 million are generally front-loaded. In some cases, ‘the bigger they are, the harder they fall’ comes into play.”
Indeed, many movies go on to recover from disappointing second-week takings. Even the mighty Spider-Man: No Way Home dropped 67.5% in its second week on release, and we all know how that turned out.
“I don’t think it’s a big deal,” says Jeff Bock, an analyst with Exhibitor Relations. “It had the biggest opening of the series, by far, which makes up for any drops.”
For some context, Quantumania is now approaching $400 million worldwide, which means that by next week, it will have eclipsed the final tally of Black Adam, which left theaters with $392 million.
“You aren’t going to always get a grand slam,” adds Bock. “But Marvel is hitting more home runs than anyone.”
The MCU is most definitely still a force to be reckoned with, but there's no getting around the fact that, for many long-time fans, Phase 4 failed to live up to expectations, and if Quantumania is indicative of what we can expect from Phase 5, Kevin Feige and co. may need to reevaluate their game plan.