So we are now at what may be a pivotal moment in the history of Marvel Studios.
For those that don't keep up with the business end of things, Quantamania just had the biggest second weekend box office drop in MCU history. And the second worst drop for a super hero movie after Batman vs Superman (it could still beat it depending on final numbers Monday.) It's also the fourth worst drop for any movie that opened to a 100+ million weekend EVER. We're talking 70%. That's a massive week to week drop for a major movie let alone something with the brand strength of Marvel.
Not only did it tank domestically this weekend, the world wide numbers are abysmal too. This thing is looking at a real shot of not even hitting 500 million worldwide. Which for a Marvel movie is unheard of.
We can quibble about definitions and try to understand the arcane nonsense of Hollywood accounting, but by many metrics you could argue that Quantamania is shaping up to be the first true bomb in the MCU. It has a 200 million dollar budget. Conventional wisdom is marketing costs are at least 50% of filming budget. So you're looking at $300 million right there. When you account for the studio/theater revenue split, there's a very real chance this thing does not achieve profitability. The next week or two will tell the tale, but if it continues with these astronomical drops, it's bad news. Even if you don't want to use the word bomb, this is a tremendous underperformance for the MCU and largely unprecedented for one of their established franchises. Let alone one that was sold as setting up the next big bad after Thanos.
You combine this with the bad reception of Thor: Love and Thunder, the generally tepid reaction to most of their TV, and what seems like a precipitous decline in both audience and critical praise for their content, and Marvel is no longer bullet proof. There's a ton more criticism of the writing and filmmaking than there used to be. Even the Marvel Studios subreddit, which has a cult like defense of any criticism of the MCU, has finally started to admit there are real and significant problems with the quality level.
Feige seems to be somewhat aware of this. At the very least they're slowing down on content. There were originally supposed to be SIX MCU Disney Plus (that is frankly absurd) shows this year, but they moved all but two (Loki Season 2 and Secret Invasion) off the schedule. They have announced delays on the film schedule as well, and leaks indicate that the Phase V and VI roadmap they released a while back has already been chucked with some films possibly seeing delays of a year or more.
We will obviously have to see how this all plays out, but after a decade of sailing sunny seas of critical praise, audience enthusiasm, and high box office, it's clear things are about to get much more choppy for them.