Madame Web Global Box Office In Week 3 Is Still Below MCU’s Worst-Ever Opening Weekend

The box office for the new superhero movie Madame Web, starring Dakota Johnson as a clairvoyant paramedic, is still below the record-low opening for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a franchise that is loosely connected to the Sony Spider-Man Universe. For quite some time, it was uncertain if the movie would outgross the opening weekend of the previous SSU outing Morbius, which flopped twice in theaters in 2022 after it went viral on social media, prompting a re-release. However, during week 3, the new movie did outgross Morbius’ opening weekend, both in the domestic market ($39 million) and worldwide ($83.9 million).

Per Deadline, despite its belated triumph over Morbius’ opening, the worldwide Madame Web box office is only projected to reach $91 million worldwide by the end of its third weekend in theaters. This is still below the lowest-ever global opening weekend for an MCU project from Marvel Studios, which was 2023’s The Marvels at $110.3 million. It is also far from hitting the break-even point for the movie, which cost $80 million and thus likely needs $160 million or more in order to end up in the black.

2024 Can Still Undo This Major Superhero Box Office Fatigue

While the Madame Web release has been particularly grim, it comes at a time when diminishing returns have hit nearly every corner of the superhero movie marketplace. The Marvels is the MCU’s lowest-grossing movie ever, and it followed the same year’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which saw the franchise’s worst week 2 drop at the time of release. The DC Extended Universe, which is transitioning into the DC Universe in 2025, has seen a similar slump because, of the nine worst-performing movies in the 15-movie franchise, seven of them were released between 2020 at the time of writing.

However, despite overall dwindling profits for superhero movies across the board, the genre may very well be about to get a huge shot in the arm. Several sequels to major comic book hits are on the schedule throughout 2024, namely the MCU’s Deadpool & Wolverine in July, DC’s Elseworlds project Joker: Folie à Deux in October, and the SSU’s Venom 3 in November. If they perform as well as or even slightly under their predecessors, they could each bring a necessary influx of box office to their respective genres. Below, check out how previous movies in their subfranchises have performed:

Other superhero movies may not be so lucky, however, like the upcoming Sony Spider-Man Universe movie Kraven the Hunter, which is due in August. It remains to be seen if that movie underperforms like Morbius and Madame Web before it. However, with those three big titles on the schedule, it seems that the superhero genre will have more reasons to celebrate than not by the end of 2024.

Source: Deadline