Credit: Marvel StudiosIt’s no secret that the latest entry into Kevin Feige’s blockbuster franchise, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, has been poorly received. But the Ant-Man 3 box office signals that Marvel Studios must not defy The Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger in the future.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023), touted as the big launch of Marvel Phase Five and the opener for the MCU’s next Big Bad Kang the Conqueror, underwhelmed pretty much everyone.
Paul Rudd’s return to the big screen as the charming Scott Lang, AKA Ant-Man, came four years after he was last seen in Avengers: Endgame (2019). Joined once more by Evangeline Lilly as Hope van Dyne/Wasp, and Michelle Pfeiffer and Michael Douglas as Hope’s parents, Janet van Dyne and Hank Pym, Ant-Man 3 brought audiences into the micro-universe of the Quantum Realm.
There the gang, plus MCU newcomer Kathryn Newton who plays Scott’s daughter Cassie Lang (replacing Emma Fuhrmann), discovered a threat that viewers have long been waiting for — Kang the Conqueror, played by Jonathan Majors.
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However, while the premise sounded promising on paper and the mid-credits scene offered hope of a blockbuster event involving Majors’s Kang, the delivery of the Marvel movie was, on the whole, poor.
So, despite Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania delivering an Ant-Man franchise opening record, the massive and steep decline at the box office in its second week has made director Peyton Reed’s second sequel one of the worst-received MCU movies in history. From the heavy CGI to the sloppy script from Jeff Loveness, fans and critics spoke out about the film’s serious lack of quality — and also whispered worries for the future as Loveness is tapped to write the fifth Avengers movie, Avengers: The Kang Dynasty (2025).
As the Ant-Man conversation simmers in anticipation of the next MCU film, James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023), new reports detail just how bad the Ant-Man 3 box office has become.
Per a report from Comic Book Movie, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania will end its theatrical run just shy of $500 million at the global box office. This puts the film miles behind other Marvel Phase Four movies like Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022), Thor: Ragnarok (2022), and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (202), which took $1.9 billion, $955 million, $760 million, and $859 million, respectively.
It also firmly plants Ant-Man 3 behind its predecessors Ant-Man (2015), which took $519 million, and Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018), which took $622 million.
Sure, the numbers Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania brought in were higher than other Phase Four movies but the circumstances were vastly different. Despite taking less than the latest Ant-Man entry, Black Widow (2021) was released simultaneously in theaters and on Disney+ via the now defunct Disney Premier Access service due to the pandemic, and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) and Eternals (2021) were released when audiences were just beginning to renter the theater.
Taking these variables into account, this is the worst box office in MCU history. If films like Top Gun: Maverick (2022) and Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) can explode at the box office, then a new movie from a titan should be able to cut through the noise.
And Marvel now should not defy CEO Bob Iger.
The newly-reinstated CEO of the House of Mouse recently spoke at the Morgan Stanley conference and alluded to Ant-Man‘s failing performance. Iger said how sequels usually work for Disney, but when a franchise has been going for as long as the MCU, do audiences want something more than a third or fourth sequel featuring the same characters? Marvel Studios do have a habit of making multiple sequels for certain characters. Let’s take this year, for example; following Ant-Man 3, Marvel Studios will release a third Guardians of the Galaxy and a sequel to Captain Marvel (2019), The Marvels (2023).
Since late 2021 when Eternals dropped, there have been no films led by new characters, and looking ahead, next year will include the fourth Captain America movie, Captain America: New World Order (2024).
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While Iger is bringing old favorites back to Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar with new Frozen, Zootopia, and Toy Story movies, it seems the CEO wants new injected into the struggling MCU.
Do you think the MCU needs to change course after the Ant-Man 3 box office disaster? Let Inside the Magic know in the comments down below!