Could Captain Marvel 2 be the Marvel Cinematic Universe's The Flash?

In the last several franchise sequel-packed, and flop-packed, years we have time and again seen mighty movie franchises put out a very big movie with very high expectations that performs disastrously. Thus did it go with the Star Wars franchise with the summer of 2018's Solo--the flopping of which stopped Disney's Star Wars movie machine cold, not a single new Star Wars movie released since but the conclusion to the new trilogy, and likely none appearing until 2025, all as Kathleen Kennedy speaks of shifting Star Wars over from a Marvel Cinematic Universe-style machine to a far lower rate James Bond-type machine (interestingly, as the Bond movie production rate falls to unprecedented lows) in a confession of the old vision's failure. Subsequently that other great George Lucas-created franchise, Indiana Jones, has come to an ignominious end (for now) with Dial of Destiny (unhappily realizing my anticipation of its being that series' own Solo). And if it the DC Extended Universe had already had enough (lesser) disappointments that a highly touted reboot had already been loudly announced, and talked up by les claqueurs, The Flash may be said to have been an equivalent catastrophe.

The result is that I find myself wondering--could Captain Marvel 2 (aka The Marvels) be to the Marvel Cinematic Universe what Solo was to Star Wars, what Indiana Jones 5 was to that series, what The Flash has been to the DCEU? Compared with when I made my prediction about The Marvels four months ago, at the beginning rather than the end of the franchise flop-packed summer of 2023, I see even less reason than before for optimism about the performance of superhero sequels like this one, whether from the DCEU, Marvel or anywhere else. Yet the fact remains that my estimate for The Marvels was already fairly low to begin with--premised on what the Black Panther franchise suffered in its theatrical revenues from the first to the second film, a drop of perhaps half in the "real" worldwide box office gross not inconceivable, leaving it with $600-$700 million collected.

Since that time I have seen no reason to think the film will do much better--while certain of the disadvantages it is likely to have are clearer. The film's shift in tone to something goofier than what its predecessors offered may not go over well with audiences (it is the kind of thing that tends to bespeak a run-down series, and very likely did not help Thor 4), while the crossover element can be awkward for people who did not see (or saw but did not like) the associated series--and this all counting the more at a time when viewers are less enthusiastic than before about moviegoing, more fickle in regard to movies that just a short time ago were nearly sure-fire "events." The result is that I do think a Solo/Indiana Jones 5/The Flash-style collapse (the movie's doing less than the $600-$700 million I anticipated, the movie maybe doing just half that business) is not wildly implausible--though of course we will know more in a few weeks, when the box office tracking starts to come in.

For an updated view of the issue, see the author's latest on Captain Marvel 2's prospects.