Comparing and Contrasting Box Office Underperformance: Black Panther 2 vs. Atom-Man 3

When looking over Black Panther 2's box office numbers back in the autumn I argued that there was a case for regarding the film as a commercial failure--as it had made, in inflation-adjusted terms, only half what its predecessor had, while given its big budget (reported as $250 million) it may have been short of covering its cost at the end of its theatrical run.

While writing for the Internet tends to have a very short half-life generally I have seen some of my posts here go on steadily accumulating views (and even comments) for years, and others get very little attention after their initial appearance. Comments on "this weekend's" box office, to no one's surprise, tend to go in the latter category. The result was that I was surprised when that particular item had a significant uptick in views months after the fact. Perhaps this was a function of the fuss over the Oscars (which left some feeling that Angela Bassett's performance in that movie was snubbed when Jamie Lee Curtis took home the statue). However, it also seems likely that this is a matter of how the next Marvel movie, Ant-Man 3, became an object of a similar "hit or flop?" argument--a more conspicuous one.

It seems to me that one can say that both movies' performance was not all that was hoped for by their backers and fans given the expectations ordinarily attaching to Marvel releases, the particularly strong reception for the original Black Panther, the resources invested in the movies--and of course, the feeling that Marvel was overdue for a "win." However, people seemed more inclined to say this in the case of Ant-Man 3, with this, the culture wars aside, a matter of the raw numbers. Black Panther 2 took in over $400 million domestically and $800 million globally--numbers not ordinarily associated with the word "flop," with, again, my suggestion that it could be seen as a failure a matter of contrast with the extreme success of the first movie, and the extremely high cost of the second. By contrast Ant-Man 3 (which is not very much less expensive than Black Panther 2, budgeted as it is at $200 million) has, after a month, barely scored $200 million in North America, while its prospects of reaching the half billion dollar mark are in doubt. Again, those numbers are not ordinarily associated with flops, but, helped by a less-strong-than-hoped-for second weekend, more easily let the media commentariat come to that conclusion.