Like It Or Not, ‘Captain Marvel’ Will Be a Success

Captain Marvel is Marvel Studios’ newest flick, and although the marketing itself doesn’t look all that impressive, that factor alone isn’t enough to indicate how well it’ll perform. If anything it’s already guaranteed to hit it out of the park. Hopefully I can provide you with a clear understanding as to why Disney is looking at yet another triumph.

I may have thought Venom was going to be an outright bomb, but that was me allowing my subjectivity to get in the way. Here, on the other hand, I want to mute all the unnecessary additional buzz and instead focus on the objective — all of which is in Marvel’s favor.

It’s a Marvel Movie

image via Esquire

Odds are that a movie like Captain Marvel will never bomb in a time like today. The brand recognition of Marvel has come a long way since The Avengers (2012), and every single one of their movies has been a box-office achievement.

With movies like Solo: A Star Wars Story, we’ve seen brands such as Star Wars fall flat on their faces. Rarely is any company safe from such duds. Marvel Studios is the exception as we’ve already seen them prove they can find ways of bringing out audiences to movies with the most obscure and unpopular characters.

But then there’s the position that this is the first Marvel Studios flick to boast a noticeable lack of enthusiasm, and that is true to a limited extent. The expectation levels in the movie fandom spheres are low, but the general audiences paint a different picture. Cinephile communities are a mere percentage of the people who’d regularly fill out the theater seats.

Look no further than YouTube where the first trailer hit 51 million views which is more than the first Black Panther trailer. Meanwhile its second trailer boasts an impressive 33 million. Although view counts shouldn’t be the main indicator of box-office success, with numbers like these it’s easy to tell that there is plenty of interest.

What the Early Signs Are Saying

image via longroom.com

The pre-sale tickets sold well in their first 24 hours of release outpacing the likes of Captain America: Civil War on Fandango right behind Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War. A valid counter could be that we live in a time when more people are starting to buy tickets online, therefore, it’s a given that it would do so well. The point especially gains credibility when you consider that Ant-Man & the Wasp rounds up that top five list as of the time of this writing.

But even then Ant-Man & the Wasp earned $622 million at the box office. That’s not too shabby of a number itself. How many studios would kill for a gross like that? So if Captain Marvel passes the Ant-Man sequel which came out a year ago in the Fandango ticket pre-sales, we have a pretty strong sign this movie will cross that number.

Now when it comes to talking about tracking…it’s better not to. It isn’t until the Thursday screenings for the movie when the projections are almost spot on. The early predictions are constantly fluctuating as seen with this movie. The industry guesses went from $150 million to $130 million to $100 million to $80 million and back up to $100 million.

Having said this, there’s an extra angle to look at Captain Marvel from that hasn’t been seen anywhere else. It’s so clever it makes you think Kevin Feige traveled to every alternative universe where Captain Marvel fails to come up with the plan that’s the least likely to fail…

The Endgame Long Game

image via Screen Rant

Marvel Studios placed themselves in the position in which Captain Marvel‘s promise cannot come under fire. So far most of the attention is on the opening weekend of the movie, and although that part is crucial, we need to take a look at an extra boost the movie will profit from.

Many people have been doubting the position of releasing Captain Marvel so close to Avengers: Endgame. After Disney’s market cannibalization last year with Solo: A Star Wars Story, any signs of a company’s oversaturation make people raise an eyebrow. With this, you not only have two Disney properties but two Marvel ones. So theoretically and on the surface, it seems like an even worse idea. In execution, this is where the genius shows.

Let’s go back to last year when Black Panther released in February and made a fortune. Eventually it dropped off from its record-breaking top 5 domestic box-office week-to-week run, though it crept back up onto the list when Avengers: Infinity War came out at the end of April — even when it was already out on DVD/Blu-Ray.

image via MPPA

It seems that the appearance of T’Challa in Infinity War might have peaked the interest of people who have not yet seen his standalone outing. It’s either that or folks just went to see it again to fill their Marvel needs when they couldn’t get into an Avengers screening. And this exact scenario will repeat with Captain Marvel, only to a greater extent, I believe.

For one, the Brie Larson flick and Endgame come out less than two months apart from each other. That means Captain Marvel will be available on more screens at a time of a new Avengers film than when Black Panther was.

The other fact is that Carol Danvers is known to play a more important role in the fourth installment of the Avengers than Black Panther did in Infinity War. Come this April 26th, people who watch every non-Avengers Marvel film on Blu-Ray/DVD might be tempted to make an exception for Captain Marvel. Her movie won’t be available anywhere else but the theater and if anyone wants to find out more about her, their only option will be to pay for a ticket.

I’m confident there will be a noteworthy spike in the film’s performance when it’s nearing its final days. Now, as for its legs until the release of Endgame, it will all depend on how Marvel markets the April blockbuster and whether they feature Carol prominently.

Consensus

You’ve got to hand it to Marvel Studios for being so strategic with their movies. Captain Marvel will be a major performer at the box-office come March. The success proves Marvel will remain on a streak if they continue to make calculated decision-making such as this.  And this is why Kevin Feige’s paycheck is justified.

Even if the movie isn’t all too spectacular we’ve got to appreciate the thought put into the business side of things, which I like to call the “Marvel way.” Now, we wait and see.

image via CNet

Thank you for reading! What are your thoughts on Captain Marvel’s box-office? Do you agree with me? Comment down below!

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