Credit – Marvel Studios
‘The Eternals’ underperformed this weekend, despite some in the mainstream media depicting a blockbuster hit. Places like Variety said it gave Korea its biggest box office opening of 2021, NBC said it soared at the box office, while Reuters said ‘The Eternals’ “reigned supreme”. ‘The Eternals’ was the second worst opening for a Marvel movie only beating out 2015’s ‘Ant-Man’. That’s really not saying a lot. ‘The Eternals’ opened 5 million shy of ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’ and 9 million shy of ‘Black Widow’. With a Rotten Tomatoes score of 48 among critics and an 80 among the audience, and a Cinemascore of B, ‘The Eternals’ is the worst rated Marvel movie of all time. There are many factors to consider as to why ‘The Eternals’ is a mixed bag with critics and audience, but one thing is for sure, as Kevin Feige fails with The Eternals, Bob Chapek cannot be thrilled about the lukewarm results and the future of the M-She-U.
The MCU is On a Path of No Return
‘The Eternals’ had a $71 million opening weekend and a total haul of $161.7 million when you add in the international markets. ‘The Eternals’ needs to do near $500,000,000 to even make a profit and it just doesn’t look like it will have the legs to do that. It’s a movie about a group of characters no one has heard of, it’s filled with woke appeasement propaganda, and is the first MCU movie to get extremely mixed reviews from the critics. Kevin Feige and Marvel’s recipe of having representational firsts, in everyone of their franchises, is getting boring and the audiences just don’t care anymore. It could also be that the MCU is suffering from superhero fatigue, but I don’t think that’s it. It comes down to the story. Kevin Feige has a library of great heroes and villains at his disposal, yet he decided to go with the most unknown group of heroes in the Marvel universe. Why did Feige and Marvel decide to go with a group of characters so unknown? Well, because the Eternals are so unknown. It was easy to make them the most diverse and represented heroes we have seen on the big screen, because audiences wouldn’t have been the wiser. But, as a result of doing that, Kevin Feige may have just put the MCU on a path of no recovery, and that’s just a lose lose for everyone.
The Rest of Phase 4 Will Abandon 70% of it’s Audience
If ‘The Eternals’ fails at the box office, we might see a restructuring of what’s to come from the MCU in the near future. We have already seen some cracks in the foundation with other projects such as Captain Marvel 2 being renamed ‘The Marvels’, with new characters being brought on board because Marvel doesn’t think Brie Larson can tow the line alone. “But ‘Captain Marvel’ was a success!” It was a hollow success. It was jammed in between two of the biggest box office juggernauts of all time and was promised to have relevant end credit scenes that would tie the two together…it did not. Audiences were duped into that box office success. Kevin Feige is systematically erasing the success he had with the first three phases of the MCU in favor of representation and it’s going to fail miserably. You can’t take all of your male heroes, and either kill them off or replace them with female counterparts and think you’re going to have success at the box office. You have literally wiped out 70% of your audience with those kind of moves. I have nothing against female heroes…I could rattle off a dozen that I would watch over and over again, so spare us the misogyny, Mr. Feige…it has nothing to do with that. Kevin Feige fails to understand that the comic books came first and were read by a dedicated, predominantly male audience. But to Kevin Feige, that’s a sin for some reason, and he’s the one who is going to rectify it. Hopefully, Bob Chapek will not want to see another great franchise go down the drain like StarWars did, and he will rectify Kevin Feige. There are a lot of great stories to be told out there Mr. Feige…just visit a local comic book store and ask any fan.
Related: Kevin Feige’s Brave New World
