The days of every Marvel Cinematic Universe movie being a sure-fire hit are long gone.
When Avengers: Endgame broke every box-office record imaginable on its way to almost $2.8 billion worldwide, Marvel seemed untouchable. But most of the studio’s recent releases have bombed.
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2023’s The Marvels and 2025’s Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts* have all massively underperformed, with The Marvels not even breaking even.
Part of the reason is likely due to the rise of streaming, especially with Disney putting so much of a focus on sending new Marvel content to their streaming service Disney+. On the flip side, that means box office flops can find success on streaming later on.
Just look at Captain America: Brave New World, which is currently the most popular movie on any streaming service according to Nielsen’s latest batch of data. During the week of May 26 to June 1, Brave New World was the highest-streamed movie with 750 million minutesโfar outpacing its competitors, like The Wild Robot (654 million minutes) and the original 2002 version of Lilo & Stitch (394 million).
Despite being a box-office disappoint with $415 million and a 48% on Rotten Tomatoes, it seems like Brave New World found its audience after all.
Captain America: Brave New World (and The Marvels, and Thunderbolts*) are available to stream now.