The Marvels sets new record for lowest-grossing MCU movie ever

Disney's latest superhero movie, The Marvels, has officially set the record for the lowest-grossing movie in Marvel Cinematic Universe history.

After being released about a month ago, the film, which notably features American actress Brie Larson, managed to gross only $80 million in North America and $197 million globally.

This comes after "The Marvels" already set the record for having the Marvel Cinematic Universe's worst all-time opening weekend at the box office upon its premiere last month. 

Despite the upcoming holiday season, during which more people are expected to view movies, Disney has decided it will no longer be reporting the film's financial results at the weekend box office, Variety reports. The movie is currently expected to play through New Year's.

As Disney's studio wrote to media on Sunday, “With ‘The Marvels’ box office now winding down, we will stop weekend reporting of international/global grosses on this title.”

Disney CEO Bob Iger largely blamed the movie's disappointing performance on Covid-19.

"'The Marvels' was shot during Covid," Iger reportedly explained. "There wasn’t as much supervision on the set, so to speak, where we have executives [that are] really looking over what’s being done day after day after day."

Iger argued that prior records the studio set in the billions of dollars have put expectations out of whack. 

"We got to the point where if a film didn’t do a billion dollars in global box office, we were disappointed," he said. "That’s an unbelievably high standard, and I think we have to get more realistic."

Others, however, are more skeptical given the stark difference between the success of The Marvels and other films the Marvel Cinematic Universe has put out in recent years. As Variety pointed out, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 fared well over the summer, grossing over $845 million at the box office. 

The Marvels managed to do worse than The Incredible Hulk, a 2008 movie that grossed just $260 million after its run in the movie theaters. The Incredible Hulk notably had a smaller budget of $150 million, which pales in comparison to The Marvels much higher $220 million.