Why The Marvels Flopped
5. Lackluster Marketing
Above all else, the marketing campaign for The Marvels has been painfully mediocre, no matter how desperately the trailers have tried to spruce things up with a neato remix of The Beastie Boys' "Intergalactic."
The trailers haven't done a great job of selling the chemistry between the three leads nor the fun of the body-swapping gimmick.
Couple this with a generic-looking villain spouting tiresome dialogue ("You took everything from me") and it's easy to appreciate why The Marvels collapsed at the box office.
Plus, the trailers have had an undeniable whiff of desperation to them as of late, regularly referencing the events of Avengers: Endgame and breathlessly recapping WandaVision and Ms. Marvel.
On top of this, the movie's title is potentially confusing to more casual moviegoers, whereas "Captain Marvel 2" would've kept things appreciably simple.
There's absolutely nothing in the marketing for this movie which screams "you need to leave the house to see this now." Much as the MCU has successfully leveraged FOMO many times in the past, that's just not the case here.
It feels like a minor movie and one that can be left for Disney+ in 60-or-so days.