Just 3 days before The Marvels was released globally, Marvel ‘s YouTube channel released a trailer with the appearance of familiar faces such as Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr), Captain America (Chris Evan). )… although they have no role in this work.

Marvel’s last few marketing efforts have left many fans skeptical. In the comments section, they said that MCU used the heroes who made its name to desperately “lure” audiences into theaters.

Even the above video is receiving 106,000 dislikes, a record high compared to 79,000 likes.

Reddit users also astutely pointed out that Marvel’s hopeless move had a reason.

According to Box Office statistics , the forecast revenue of Marvel Team  will be from 50 million to 75 million USD in the first week of release.

Compared to the previous billion-dollar revenue of Avengers or Spiderman , it can be seen that the “giant” with a film industry worth 29.55 billion USD (according to Forbes , July 2023) is struggling to save its heroes. his brainchild.

The “superhero empire” is in crisis

The root of Marvel’s continuous failures can be traced back to 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out and demand for online content increased sharply. The mouse family’s young Disney+ platform had to compete with Netflix, Apple TV+, Amazon Prime…

The giant Disney was forced to force his “golden egg” to “lay” countless television series based on famous superheroes such as archer Hawkeye, Ms. Marvel, god of trickery Loki…

The most obvious problem with this strategy is that all series, small or large, meet the criteria: Must be linked to the  Marvel cinematic universe  (MCU).

This invisibly forces audiences to watch dozens of closely related series if they want to have the most complete experience when going to theaters to watch MCU products.

Not far away, to know the origin of the main characters of the Marvel Team , the audience must watch the entire Ms. Marvel (4-5 hours long, 6 episodes), WandaVision (6 hours long, 9 episodes) and of course Captain Marvel  – the prequel to the film.

In a time when audiences only see superheroes as pure entertainment experiences and do not want to put too much effort into learning, this is a “fatal” weakness.

In an interview with Variety , Eric Handler, Disney’s economic data analyst on Wall Street, said: “Viewers seem to be “overwhelmed” with Marvel content.

Public opinion of the studio’s films is gradually becoming mixed. However, with an investment of hundreds of millions of dollars, each “empire” project launched on the market is a big gamble that requires revenue.

That’s not to mention the scandals surrounding the harsh working regime of the graphics and special effects team, or most recently, the suspicion of abusing the girlfriend of actor Jonathan Majors, who played the main villain in the 20th century. The next source of the MCU, with more importance than Thanos.

Counting only theatrical films, MCU’s massive legacy has a total of 33 projects – Photo: Disney+

According to Variety , to recreate the appeal of the film series, Marvel has made efforts to negotiate to bring Robert Downey Jr back to the role of Iron Man and Scarlett Johansson as the black widow, these are two characters who died in  Avengers: The ending  and the two actors mentioned above also terminated their contracts with Marvel.

The company itself has not made any official announcement, but if they bring back these veteran faces, the cost will not be cheap.

It is known that Downey Jr.’s upfront salary is for Iron Man 3 is about 25 million USD, this is a movie released in 2013, the actor’s value has increased a lot after the successes of Avengers or Oppenheimer .

Paul Dergarabedian, a media analyst at Comscore, said that the words Marvel used to be a testament to quality and that audiences had very high expectations every time a project from the company was announced.

“All projects with revenue under half a billion USD are failures of both reputation and revenue.

Ironically, the high expectations from audiences and the film industry for Marvel are the result of the resounding success this company has achieved over the years” – Paul added.

The gamble is sure to lose

The budget for Marvel Team  is about $270 million according to a report from  Forbes , making it the fourth most expensive project in MCU history.

According to ScreenRants , this means that Marvel Team will need to earn about $450 million to be considered a revenue success, after accounting for all costs incurred during promotion.

Director of “Marvel Team” Nia DaCosta once admitted that the decline of superhero movies is right before our eyes – Photo:

Not to mention coming out in a disappointing year for superhero movies with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,  The Flash  and Shazam! Fury of the Gods .

Based on Box Office statistics , it seems that MCU heroines will struggle to recover their capital, let alone make a profit.

The film has now premiered worldwide and received mixed reactions from critics.

But the reviews, whether negative or positive, all have one noticeable thing in common, which is that the plot has not broken through the superhero mold, which mass audiences have grown tired of in recent years.

Marvel Team has a score of 60% on Rotten Tomatoes. Expected to premiere in Vietnam on November 10.