The Marvels has broken a 15-year MCU record thanks to its terrible box office return

Marvel Studios is known for creating record-breaking box office smashes, but its latest release The Marvels has given the production company an all-time low.

The Marvels is a 2023 superhero film produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Pictures that provides a sequel to the film Captain Marvel (2019) and a continuation of the 2022 miniseries, Ms. Marvel.

It follows iconic superheroes Captain Marvel, Monica Rambeau and Ms. Marvel as they team up to save the universe, and has received mixed reviews from critics and a generally positive reaction from film fans.

But, despite being called 'funny,' 'fast-paced' and 'easy to enjoy,' the Phase 5 film was a bit of a box office flop, at least by the Marvel Cinematic Universe's (MCU) standards, bringing in just $197 million.

While that seems like a pretty decent showing, the 33rd film in the MCU pales in comparison to the studio's most successful offering, Avengers: Endgame, which raked in a whopping $2.798 billion globally back in 2019, making it the second-highest grossing movie of all time.

In fact, The Marvels is now dubbed the 'lowest-grossing MCU movie in history,' having beat out the previous record holder, 2008's The Incredible Hulk, which grossed $264.8 million at the global box office.

It also saw a second-weekend drop of 78 per cent, the largest for any Marvel movie in history.

Marvel Entertainment

Following the poor box office turnout, Walt Disney Studios Pictures has confirmed it will stop reporting on the film's ongoing box office numbers.

However, Disney CEO Bob Iger's explanation as to why it performed so badly has caused some controversy.

He claimed that The Marvels suffered because it was 'shot during Covid' and suggested that 'there wasn't enough supervision on set [from executives].'

But, people believe Iger is ignoring a number of glaringly obvious issues and is simply attempting to shift the blame away from Disney.

Marvel Entertainment

Other contributions to the movie's poor performance include the SAG-AFTRA strike, which was held in response to studios not giving writers and actors fair working conditions and rights.

The strike ran for four months between July 14, 2023 and November 9, 2023 and actors were unable to unable to promote the film until it had ended.

This means that it got far less promotion in the build up to its November 7 release.

On top of this, like 2019's Captain Marvel, it's also possible that The Marvels received undue hate simply because it was a female-led production, meaning it achieved far less than it deserved.