Captain Marvel 2's Second Weekend in North American Release: How Did it Go?

Back in May I speculated that The Marvels, based on the emergent pattern of Marvel Cinematic Universe sequels each making 20 to 50 percent less in real terms than the preceding film in their series (and the particularly close parallel with Black Panther 2), would gross some $600-$700 million global. After a summer of shocking franchise flops that could not simply be blamed on anything but audience disinterest (given how well other movies like Barbie were doing in the same season), and the poor impression that the film's pre-release publicity seemed to be making on the public, this seemed like it could be optimistic--and in early October the tracking data confirmed it. On the basis of that added information I revised my estimate for the global gross down to $250-$500 million--and then after another month of signs pointing to an even weaker performance than had seemed likely in early October, ended up wondering if even $250 million would not be overoptimistic, with this possibility hardly seeming less plausible after the actual opening weekend (which saw it take in just $47 million in North America).

Of course, I did suggest that hit movies, even when they were big movies like this one, may have been growing less front-loaded than before, and that good holds might partially compensate for the film's weak opening (as they did for the last MCU movie Guardians of the Galaxy 3, and even more for that flop-turned-hit Elemental). Alas, the expectations for the second weekend were a far cry from that (Boxoffice Pro projecting a hard 65 percent drop, versus the 48 percent decline Guardians had) while the reality seems to have been worse--a fall of 78 percent, leaving the film with just $10 million grossed this weekend and $65 million in total.

By contrast even The Flash had not just opened bigger, but had a better first-to-second weekend hold ($55 million versus Captain Marvel 2's $47 million on the opening weekend, and a 73 percent), leaving it one-third ahead at the same point in its run (with just under $88 million after ten days, as against Captain Marvel 2's $65 million).

The Flash, of course, failed even to double its opening weekend gross, on the way to barely breaking past the $100 million mark domestically ($108 million). Captain Marvel 2, opening weaker and fading faster, would seem set to do worse, and thus fall short of the $100 million mark--and maybe even below the low end of the much-reduced domestic range I suggested earlier ($85-$125 million, versus the $100 million I thought was as low as it could go back in early October).

Of course, we do have a holiday weekend coming up--and again, the competition over the weeks ahead does not exactly look fierce. (The Hunger Games sequel opened this weekend to even less than Captain Marvel 2 had last week, just $44 million, near the bottom of the range predicted for it.) Still, even if I think it safest to watch how the film does next weekend before writing it off as a failure, it is undeniable that its chances of overcoming the weak opener, probably always slight to begin with, just keep on getting slighter.