Stephen King Calls Out Reactions To The Marvels Bombing At The Box Office

Highlights

• Despite The Marvels’ high expectations as a sequel to Captain Marvel, it had a disappointing box office opening, receiving backlash and online engagement.
• Best-selling author Stephen King criticized those gloating over the film’s low box office numbers, questioning why people would gloat over failure.
• Many supporters agreed with King and suggested that the backlash may be rooted in racism, sexism, and misogyny, considering the film’s female-led cast and director.

With The Marvels suffering an abysmal box office opening that undercut even the most conservative estimates pre-release, the film has received an unexpected white knight in the form of prolific author Stephen King stepping in to scold those reveling in the bad news.

The Marvels had a lot to live up to, serving as a sequel to the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s 2019 blockbuster Captain Marvel, which enjoyed box office success to the tune of more than a billion dollars and tied into the most successful film in the franchise, Avengers: Endgame. Despite the unique premise and star power, The Marvels‘ first trailer was the MCU’s most disliked on YouTube, foreshadowing a less-than-stellar reception for Captain Marvel 2.

RELATED: 6 Things The Marvels Sets Up For The Future Of The MCU

Unfortunately, The Marvels box office numbers set a new record-low for the MCU with an abysmal opening that saw the $200 million budget film rake in only about $47 million domestically and just over $100 million overall, leading to a flurry of online engagement discussing it. Taking to his account on X, best-selling author King had some scathing words for those seemingly gloating about the failure. The post reads, “I don’t go to MCU movies, don’t care for them, but I find this barely masked gloating over the low box office for THE MARVELS very unpleasant. Why gloat over failure?” This pushback received mixed responses, with some agreeing and others dissenting, but notably, even the most vocal dissidents not disrespecting King himself.

The majority agreed with King, with some going further and diagnosing the cause of the seemingly outsized revelry in the The Marvels‘ failure as rooted in racism, sexism, and misogyny. These responses point out that in addition to its female-led cast, the film was also helmed by a woman of color in Nia DaCosta, who also noted such attitudes to her work in varying ways leading up to the film, including weird notes from The Marvels test screenings that seemed more hostile than helpful. The film was also clearly meant for a female demographic in a mainly male-dominated consumer pool, possibly inciting some of the supposed discrimination.

The criticism from King is valid, and there’s assuredly some truth to the issues raised by supporters in his replies, albeit with a significant deviation from the spirit of the original message. The problem of discriminatory attitudes is not new to Disney-owned projects, and it isn’t one that the company seems equipped to handle well, as seen with how Disney failed Star Wars‘ John Boyega amid racism during his time playing Finn in the sequel trilogy. How much of The Marvels‘ woes were caused by this, and what portion can be attributed to the general superhero fatigue, Disney Plus homework requirement, lack of promotion, dynamic release dates, and more is anyone’s guess.

It’s been said that The Marvels could be the last traditional Marvel movie, and its opening performance has made that possibility inevitable. While the rework of Daredevil: Born Again was the precursor for the franchise’s Disney Plus shows getting more conventional structuring (including the first MCU showrunner), it seems The Marvels has become an expensive signal for the franchise’s big-budget films to follow the same path. Fans and shareholders can only wait to see how a new approach works.

The Marvels is now playing in theaters.

Source: Stephen King/ X