The bigger characters and the more tried and tested characters are always doing to do well or better at the box office. Especially if the movie is good.
Thats why 2nd solo movie from Shazam, Aquaman, Captain Marvel saw a big dip from their predecessors. The Flash hasn't headlined his own movie until 2023 when the DC brand wasn't as strong as it was before. Then that leaves you with Black Adam, Madame Web, who aren't really well known outside of the comics.
It will be extra interesting what happens next year. Thunderbolts, Captain America without Chris Evans and another Fantastic 4. That line up is not tried and tested. Its a good thing there won't be a Blade reboot and another Sony movie that isn't Spider-Man in 2025.
Deadpool/Wolverine should perform well if not great. Venom 3 should at least pull "okay" numbers. Kraven has no chance in succeeding, at this rate imo.
Here's the thing - people are mixing DC and Marvel. There is without a doubt DEFINITELY a DC fatigue. But only two MCU films haven't done well post Covid.
If I was to reckon a guess it's because DC recently is a brand that people know not to trust outside of a couple of rare occassions (Batman films). It's like do you get chicken from McDonalds or Applebees? Both are relatively fast food/chain food, but customers generally know that Applebees is much better quality than McDonalds if that makes sense. James Gunn has his work ahead of him and I trust that he can do it.
I don't see the Sony non-Spider-Man movies ever doing well outside of Venom. They put little to no work into those and that shows on the screen and in the trailers.
Thunderbolts is a wild card. I expect that to potentially just break even or make some profit. I also expect that if it even makes a semi healthy profit people will chant that the sky is falling for Marvel. Problem here is same as with The Marvels - Disney is putting too much faith into thinking people will want to see continuation of TV characters on the silver screen. G.A. will have the same response to Walker as they had to Monica and Kamala, "who?"
[I think 'Mandalorian' here might be an exception since that widely caught on during Covid]
I expect that Captain America without Chris will probably make a healthy profit, but be a noticeable drop off from the box office of Chris' films (akin to BP vs BP2). People will again chant that the sky is falling. While a TV show is connected to it, audiences won't really need to see the series to follow the film - they know the characters. It needs to be said - Chris' first Cap wasn't a lightning rod success either - he caught on after the first Avengers film. I remember being a rarity and odd duck out in favoring Cap over Iron Man.
I think Fantastic Four has a strong chance if it's done right. Audiences tend to want a new take on familiar grounds. A superhero film that takes place in the 60s is that in spades.
My thing is this - saying there's a Marvel fatigue or a sweeping superhero fatigue at this point is a hyperbole. The statistics just don't show that at the box office. It shows a DC fatigue, but not Marvel, if anything. 2021 and 2022 were solid years that saw mostly gains (if Thor premiered worldwide, box office rose domestically), 2023 was the outlier with films that had obvious problems except for one (Guardians). Four solid years (2024) with an outlier isn't "fatigue."
deadline.com
