HummingLemon

Unless Aquaman is a complete masterpiece ATSV is basically locked as the highest grossing CBM of the year dom. There's a better chance at ITSV domestic > Marvels domestic than ATSV domestic < Marvels domestic

I was talking about audience reception. OW of GOTG 3 was muted due to the meh audience reception of the past couple of MCU projects.

Multiverse of Madness and Thor 4 earned a B+ CinemaScore which is pretty poor by MCU standards. Before phase 4 the only one lower than an A- was Thor (2011) and that's considered one of the weakest MCU movies.

It's pretty obvious that the not-so-well received projects like DS2, Thor 4, Ant-Man 3, and She-Hulk continually damaged the brand which caused GOTG 3 to have such a low opening.

This ain't opening to $100m bruh 💀 😂😂😂. Sub $90m probably, maybe even $80m. At this point I could see below Ant-Man 2015 WW.

Oof, that's bad. Especially for how trash Quantumania was How much do you think Guardians would've opening to had it released in May 2022 (right after No Way Home). . .before Doctor Strange, Thor, She-Hulk, and Ant-Man fucked everything up?

The pandemic/HBO Max ones don't count so the DCEU is on 5 or 4 flops in a row, depending on Birds of Prey

Well, I agree. Not because $400M is likely but because $1 billion is so unbelievably unlikely. Also, when pre-sales start, what do you expect this to be tracking for for the 5 day weekend? I remember you said Marvels would track like John Wick 4/The Little Mermaid or smthn

Hmm. . .I could see this having a higher female % than the first Captain Marvel.

I think a good comp is Secret Life of Pets, which went from 875 --> 431, basically a 50% drop. I could see The Marvels ending at like $575M WW which would roughly be a 50% drop from CM1.

I could see it, Aquaman 2 doesn't have the things that held the other post-Aquaman movies back Shazam 1 - Unknown character, small scale, kinda cheap Birds of Prey - R-rated, meh marketing, cheap, D-list characters WW84 & TSS - COVID + HBO Max Black Adam - New character, did quite decent actually Shazam 2 & Blue Beetle - Post pandemic, nobody cares about these characters Flash - Reddit fanfic movie made specifically for DC fans (+ toxic WOM) Aquaman 2 doesn't have 1. A character nobody cares about 2. A small budget/cheap in scale . . .and it also has a good release date DCEU is buried but I can see it doing well based on its own terms

The bloodiest of blood-baths starts when we get the first tracking for THE MARVELS

It's still insane how Aquaman made $1.148 billion but then *none* of their films made $400m WW since (of that, you have one profitable film, one borderline flop, two pandemic excused bombs, and then four straight up bombs).

I'm confident this won't drop as much

@Relevation Ok I can confidently say your <$400M prediction is 100% not happening. There's no way this drops 66%+ from the first one. I know The Flash imploded to $268m WW but this is a far, far safer bet.

When do you guys think presales for The Marvels will start up? Wakanda Forever with the same release date started on Oct 3.

Yes, there's no denying that COVID hurt it. I just don't think it hurt it to the extent that you're saying. Domestically, I don't think COVID removed 55% of its potential gross.

Eh I would've liked for that to happen, but I don't think the pandemic hurt it *that* much. My guess is like $300M domestic + $300M OS + $100M China = $700M WW (without a pandemic)

That is true. The massive difference in general Marvel hype/positivity in Sep 2021 vs Sep 2023 is pretty crazy. Also I don't think Shang-Chi would've done $1 billion without the pandemic. COVID wasn't that bad when it released so it probably would've done like ~$700-750M, somewhere in the realm of Doctor Strange/Guardians of the Galaxy. And also, how much do you think it would've done domestically without the pandemic?

Shang-Chi was a new character when COVID was still an issue and it did $225m domestically. This needs to make *AT LEAST* that much to not be a major disappointment.

I guarantee you most people don't even know that movie exists. And the crazy thing is that it was still insanely profitable

Secret Life of Pets went from $369M to $158M (yes I know that's not $400m domestic but it's close enough)

GOTG 3 could've done like $170M/$450M had it came out in May 2022 instead of May 2023

Now here's the real question: If this earns $1.148 billion, would that be more impressive than the first one earning $1.148 billion? I would say yes. No joke, if this outgrosses the first one worldwide, that would be (arguably) more impressive than BP $700m domestic.