Not Deadpool, but Captain America: Brave New World Will be the Real Test of the MCU's Appeal to Movie Audiences

This summer saw the release of the first Marvel Cinematic Universe movie since the debacle that was The Marvels back in November 2022, Deadpool vs. Wolverine. It proved a spectacular hit with audiences when it hit theaters, grossing over $600 million in North America and improving on that worldwide--giving it a final take that, even after inflation, was a third higher than that of the original Deadpool way back in 2016.

The courtiers and claqueurs of the press, which had been waiting desperately for something, anything, like Deadpool's success, rushed to seize on it as proof that audiences are as ready to eat up superhero sequels as ever they were in service to the studios' doubling down on announcements of much, much more to come (bringing back Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans and who knows who else to the next edition of The Avengers).

It seemed to me that they were, as usual, getting ahead of themselves. While Deadpool vs. Wolverine has unquestionably lived up to (or exceeded) any reasonable expectation for that film it is still an exceedingly idiosyncratic product. Not only is the Deadpool franchise far from being a conventional superhero series--indeed, it is a beat-you-over-the-head-with-its-postmodernism parody of the superhero film whose popularity can suggest the form's creakiness--but gimmicks like pairing up Deadpool with Wolverine are not to be had every time, while the movie went above and beyond in "giving the people what they want," to the point of its bursting with cameos and in-jokes in ways that also are not easily repeated to the same effect.

That people came out in such great numbers for it does not guarantee that they will come out for more conventional (for many, more stereotyped and blander) fare with anything like the same enthusiasm. The result is that the release of Captain America: Brave New World, due out not quite six weeks from now on Valentine's Day weekend, seems to me a far more meaningful test of the salability of the Marvel Cinematic Universe brand.

That said, how well would Captain America 4 have to do at the box office to "do the job?" Think of the matter this way. Back in 2016 Captain America 3--the first really big release of that summer--pulled in $400 million in North America. Adjusted for inflation this is more like $540 million today.

Deadpool, of course, cleared that mark--by almost $100 million, and this in spite of the handicap of a well-earned R rating. However, no other Marvel Cinematic Universe movie has hit that mark since before the pandemic with the exception of the anomalous Spider-Man: No Way Home (another hard-to-repeat cross-over event), leaving little meaningful precedent, such that I can easily picture the film falling short, perhaps far short, of the half billion dollar mark.

Of course, so high a mark does mean plenty of room for the courtiers and claqueurs to "spin" a lower gross than that as a "win" for Marvel--to, ignoring inflation as they grade on a curve, say that a $300 million gross is great. Alas, the shakiness of Marvel's position after these rough past few years--and the way this movie's production budget exploded (we hear now of an outlay of over $350 million due to reshoots, implying that $300 million won't cut it, especially with ever less to hope for from the Chinese market)--and the fact that there will be two more MCU movies coming out in the next ten months after this (including the Phase Six opener Fantastic Four in July)--mean that Marvel really, really, really needs this one to be a winner which proves "We've still got it!"

The result is that for those interested in the business side of cinema this one is well worth watching--all as the tracking-based estimates should start to make the rounds of the relevant parts of the entertainment media soon.