Is Box Office Failure Getting Boring?

When back in early March box office-watchers were realizing that, after its sensational opening weekend, Ant-Man 3's ticket sales were going flat--and certainly not kicking off the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Phrase Five with the hoped-for triumph--there seemed to be real surprise. There was less surprise when Fast and Furious 10 and Transformers 6 performed poorly by the standard of their franchises, because expectations were lower, but it added to the normalization of the failure of the kinds of films that until very recently tended to be considered nearly sure-fire successes, as did the opening weekend of Guardians of the Galaxy 3 (even if this was partially compensated for by good legs), the letdown that was the release of the live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid, and, especially after its earlier insane hyping, the catastrophe that was the release of The Flash into theaters, as that very same weekend Elemental underperformed (its measure of redemption, too, coming a lot later and being limited in nature), and two weeks after that Indiana Jones 5, suffered (even considering the lowering of expectations after a poorly conceived worldwide premiere at Cannes) as bad a box office catastrophe as anything up to that point in the year. By their own more modest lights the superhero film Blue Beetle and The Expendables 4 franchise did just as badly.

By the time Captain Marvel 2 rolled around it seemed that no one was very hopeful for it--and the initial tracking-based estimates left less scope for disappointment, as you see rechecking the old figures. A month before release Boxoffice Pro told us that The Flash and Indiana Jones 5 would both finish well north of $200 million at worst, with the $350-$400 million range within reach, in just the domestic market. Alas, The Flash barely broke the $100 million barrier (pulling in less than it was supposed to make on just its opening weekend), while Indiana finished with under $175 million. By contrast Captain Marvel 2, expected to fall short of $200 million in even the best case scenario, and not outdo The Flash by much in the worst, had less way to fall--even as it did indeed fall lower than that ($100 million looking out of reach for the movie now). Meanwhile, as Disney's Wish proves a significant disappointment commercially (with the film's opening weekend again falling short of the low expectations for it, followed by a bad first-to-second weekend drop), and the prediction going that Aquaman 2 may not do much better than The Flash or The Marvels, it seems that the commentariat can scarcely work up a response. All that can be said has been said--even as the phenomenon continues, with every sign indicating that flops of this kind will continue in the same steady succession through 2024.