Marvel’s New ‘Captain America’ Is No. 1, Despite Poor Reviews

At the height of the superhero boom a few years ago, Disney pushed its Marvel assembly lines to run faster and faster. After awhile, quality suffered and ticket sales declined.

So Disney slowed the pace. Last year, Marvel released one movie (the megasuccessful “Deadpool & Wolverine”) and two Disney+ series. To compare, in 2021 Marvel churned out four movies (with mixed results) and five Disney+ series.

Factory problem fixed?

Maybe: Marvel’s “Captain America: Brave New World” was a runaway No. 1 at the global box office over the weekend. The movie, which cost at least $300 million to make and market worldwide, was on pace to sell roughly $84 million in tickets from Thursday through Sunday in the United States and Canada, according to box office analysts. Moviegoers overseas were poised to chip in another $100 million or so.

Maybe not: “Brave New World” received the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s lowest-ever grade (B-minus) from ticket buyers in CinemaScore exit polls. Reviews were only 50 percent positive, according to Rotten Tomatoes, which resulted in a “rotten” rating from the site. Just two Marvel movies rank lower on the Rotten Tomatoes meter, and both quickly ran out of box office steam after No. 1 starts that were driven by die-hard fans and marketing bombast.

Those films were “Eternals,” 47 percent positive, which had $86 million in opening-weekend sales in 2021, after adjusting for inflation; and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” 46 percent, which arrived to $113 million over three days in 2023.

“Quantumania” was directed by the Marvel veteran Peyton Reed. In every other instance where a Marvel movie has struggled either critically or commercially (or both), the director has had little to no experience with sprawling franchise movies, let alone superheroes. Julius Onah directed “Brave New World.” His prior feature film résumé consisted of two low-budget thrillers and “The Cloverfield Paradox,” a Netflix movie that cost $45 million.

“Brave New World” stars Anthony Mackie as Captain America, a role that Chris Evans played in numerous Marvel movies from 2011 to 2019. Mr. Mackie joined what is known as the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2014, when he played a winged superhero called the Falcon in “Captain America: The Winter Soldier.” In 2021, his character took over as Captain America in the final episode of the Disney+ series “Falcon and the Winter Soldier.”

Harrison Ford stars in “Brave New World” as a power-crazed U.S. president who turns into Red Hulk, wrecking havoc in the government and society.