‘The Marvels’ May Be Disney’s Biggest Box Office Flop Yet

The Walt Disney Company just cannot do anything right these days.

Earlier this week, Disney CEO Bob Iger admitted that the company “lost some focus” with their content decisions and execution. That was a significant understatement, and given the myriad of problems they’ve created for themselves, fixing it was already a monumental task.

READ: DISNEY CEO BOB IGER ADMITS COMPANY ‘LOST SOME FOCUS,’ BUT IS IT TOO LATE TO FIX?

And that was before Disney got the first box office results from Marvel Studios’ latest signature release, The Marvels.

Pre-release tracking had suggested that The Marvels could gross $75 million to $80 million in its opening weekend, which would have been a disastrous failure for a film with an estimated $270 million production budget. Given the cost of marketing often equals or exceeds the budget, it’s possible the break even point for Marvels is around $550 million or more.

Well the first estimates for the opening weekend box office are out and they are…much, much worse than expected.

According to Deadline Hollywood, The Marvels is on track for a woeful ~$47 million opening weekend. On top of being an even bigger flop than expected, it’s the lowest opening for a Marvel Cinematic Universe film. Ever.

NEW YORK - Brie Larson speaks at THE MARVELS Movie Theater Pop-In on November 10. (Photo by Jason Mendez/Getty Images for Disney)

Disney Keeps Getting Its Biggest Bets Wrong

For more than a decade, Marvel was essentially untouchable.

Their Cinematic Universe plan was flawlessly executed, with interlocking storylines weaving together recognizable, beloved characters. The Avengers series brought those storylines together to a generally satisfying conclusion.

But after completing those projects, Marvels lost much of what made it successful. The laser focus on key characters was abandoned in favor of checking diversity, equity and inclusion boxes. Charismatic performers like Robert Downey Jr. were replaced with Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel. And while the first Captain Marvel film was a box office success, reviews for Larson’s performance were mixed, to say the least.

Despite the generally poor reception, Disney committed significantly more money to the sequel, while handing the reigns over to an inexperienced director, Nia DaCosta. Giving $270 million to DaCosta, coming off a film festival success and a poorly rated horror film, was, as many predicted, a very bad idea.

Trailers for The Marvels were underwhelming to extremely off putting. Brie Larson isn’t a big draw, and few seem to like the Captain Marvel character itself. Outside observers could see it, why couldn’t Disney?

‘Marvels’ May Lead To MCU Reboot

The list of Marvel Studios mistakes continues to grow. Ant Man was a bomb, Black Widow and Shang-Chi were unsuccessful and now The Marvels could lose hundreds of millions of dollars.

Swept up in a wave of political activism from vocal employees, Marvel turned its focus away from quality, inoffensive entertainment to injecting progressive messages where they don’t belong. Ant-Man’s daughter became an anti-police social justice activist. TV shows like She-Hulk were an openly political embarrassment, degrading the expectation of quality and objectivity that audiences had come to expect from Marvel.

And the awe inspiring failure of The Marvels is the inevitable result.

Disney and Marvel head Kevin Feige now have no choice but to go back to the drawing board. For a once invincible studio to have this many films flop is as stunning as it was predictable.

Make quality movies that don’t alienate half your audience. Don’t cast actors that seem to despise the characters they’re playing. Don’t let far left employees dictate content.

It’s a simple fix. But is Disney or Marvel willing to commit to it? Given the string of financial losses, they’re going to have to sooner rather than later, or risk further erosion of their once dominant film studio.