Captain America: Brave New World Has Cleared A Very Low Bar At The Box Office

After three weekends in theaters, the ultimate fate of "Captain America: Brave New World" is truly coming into focus. On the plus side for Marvel Studios, director Julius Onah's latest entry in the "Captain America" franchise has topped the box office for three weekends straight. That's a feat that relatively few movies can claim. It's also, by this point, avoided becoming the lowest-grossing installment in the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Unfortunately, it's still probably going to end up ranking pretty low among the franchise's movies so far as their box office performances go.

"Brave New World," which represents Anthony Mackie's first solo film as our new Captain America, topped the charts this past weekend with an estimated $15 million domestically. Overall, though, the 2025 Oscars largely overshadowed the box office. Plus, with Focus Features' thriller "Last Breath" ($7.8 million) being the only movie entering the marketplace, Marvel's latest was essentially unchallenged. But as much as that helps the optics for Disney and the House of Ideas, the numbers for this one are increasingly looking unkind.

The film has, to date, pulled in $341.8 million worldwide. That puts it above 2008's "The Incredible Hulk" ($265.5 million) and 2023's "The Marvels" ($199.7 million), which remains the lowest-grossing MCU movie ever. At this rate, "Brave New World" is likely to finish in the $400 million range, which would put it in the neighborhood of "Eternals" ($401.7 million) or perhaps "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" ($432.2 million). Notably, though, both of those movies were hampered far more by the pandemic. This movie, on the other hand, has no such excuse. It has also been unchallenged for several weeks, which paints a far more grim picture.

What we're continuing to see is the MCU's power as must-watch pop culture entertainment is waning. Most of the lowest-grossing MCU movies were released after "Avengers: Endgame" ($2.8 billion) helped to wrap up the Infinity Saga in 2019. The pandemic certainly didn't help matters, but between the Disney+ shows contributing to oversaturation and recent films in the franchise earning middling reviews ("Brave New World" included), Marvel is struggling to find consistency.

Of the 35 MCU movies released theatrically since 2008, "Brave New World" is only going to perform better than about five of those. With a reported $180 million budget, it's also going to fail to turn a profit theatrically. Mind you, this isn't taking inflation into account, which would only make things look far worse for Onah's political thriller. That illustrates just how far the franchise has fallen in recent years, with "Deadpool & Wolverine" ($1.3 billion worldwide) now serving as the exception rather than the rule. Something is amiss.

Looking ahead, Marvel Studios has "Thunderbolts*" set to hit theaters in May, with the long-awaited "Fantastic Four: First Steps" arriving not long after in July. Those movies both have mixed prospects, as "Thunderbolts*" isn't a name audiences are familiar with, and it's largely using B-level characters to assemble a new super-team. Meanwhile, previous "Fantastic Four" adaptations have yet to truly hit the mark. If this one can break the cycle, it'll give Marvel its best shot at securing a big win before "Avengers: Doomsday" and "Avengers: Secret Wars" bring the Multiverse Saga to a close. What's clear is that Kevin Feige and Co. need to shift gears, because what's going on right now isn't working on the level that it needs to.

"Captain America: Brave New World" is in theaters now.