I think this year has confirmed what some believed to be a myth: the term “superhero fatigue.” It’s real and it’s spectacularly present right now.
We didn’t think “The Marvels” failure could be surpassed, but Jason Momoa said “hold my beer” this weekend, held Amber Heard’s hand and they jumped into the spotlight.
Warner Bros’ “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” grossed an estimated $28.1M domestically over the 3-day weekend (from 3,706 locations). Estimated 4-day weekend gross is $40.0M. It’s the second-lowest opening ever for a theatrical-only DCEU release. The film had a $205M+ production budget.
I don’t believe the term “superhero fatigue” should be simplified. Yes, there is “fatigue” when it comes to Marvel/DC releases, but if you look at all of the superhero movies that failed miserable at the box-office this year, they have one common denominator: they were all bad movies.
How about making a good superhero movie for a change? One that doesn’t take its audience for granted, that doesn’t feel like a cash grab. Maybe with quality comes quantity of audience. Just some food for thought.
That’s why it’ll be interesting to see how well “Deadpool 3” does next year. It’s currently set to be the only Marvel movie release of 2024, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it does exceptionally well at the box-office. Its future success will depend entirely on one question — is it a good movie? It’s not rocket science.
In the age of social media, word of mouth travels very fast. Audiences are not just looking at Tomatoscores, but are actually reading what others have to say on X, Facebook, TikTok etc. These same movie audiences read the toxic buzz about ‘Aquaman 2’ on their newsfeed and this weekend delivered a resounding “No, thank you.”