Why The Marvels Flopped

9. Captain Marvel Isn't As Popular As Other MCU Heroes

While it's fair to say that nobody cared about many of the MCU's biggest superheroes until a compelling movie about them came out, The Marvels faces an especially steep hill in this regard given that it has three protagonists of dubious-at-best popularity.

Brie Larson's Carol Danvers is obviously the most high profile of the focal trio, yet she nevertheless remains a highly divisive character among the MCU fandom, many simply feeling that she's "boring" and lacks the personality to sell a movie by herself.

Though the first Captain Marvel cracked $1.13 billion worldwide, it's also worth remembering that it benefitted massively from releasing between Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, effectively serving as a bridge between the two movies and catching the associated tailwind of hype.

Naturally, this sequel has no such luck.

As for Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) and Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani)? Even accepting that they gained their powers in Disney+ TV shows - another problem we'll get to in a moment - neither character has a large fanbase, and so general audiences likely met their presence in trailers with a disinterested shrug.

When you've got a movie centered around three characters that general audiences just haven't connected with, it shouldn't be terribly surprising that the box office outcome is so grim.