Doctor Strange 2 Will Not Break One Billion Dollars
I had predicted that Strange 2 would likely top out between $850 – $950 million. I no longer believe that it will even meet my low-end estimate.
Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness fell off a cliff in its third weekend. It pulled in $30 million this weekend. It has now cracked (just barely) the $800 million mark. As its breakeven point was a ludicrous $750 million, it has officially made a profit…probably.
But next weekend Top Gun: Maverick takes off and that is going to eat whatever is left of Doctor Strange’s lunch.
It’s over baby!
Its theater run is all done but for the crying. Leaving the bigger question of what Disney needs to do with Marvel.
In my experience failure is always an option, but rarely, a contingency plan at Disney. There doesn’t as yet appear to be any kind of course adjustment being considered for Marvel despite the fact that it has now lost money on every movie and TV show since 2018. Except for Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness which looks like it’s going to end its theatrical run with a stunning $30 million dollars in profit.
Truthfully, the only reason it made the money it did was that it inherited a lot of goodwill from Spiderman No Way Home. Which was Sony Marvel not Disney Marvel. I have serious doubts about Kevin Feige’s level of involvement with that one because it was actually good.
Regardless, the next up is Thor: Love and Thunder, and that has no goodwill at all on a property that has historically underperformed in the first place. So the big question is, will this Marvel film be a mega-bomb for Marvel or will the Zombie-fans keep showing up, despite the fact that they know they aren’t being entertained anymore.
Not that that matters as there no longer appears to be enough of them to provide a reliable billion-dollar payout.
Marvel needs a housecleaning but there is no way in hell that Bob Chapek is the man to do that. He was too timid to fire Krazy Kathleen and has been steamrollered by Pixar which hasn’t made a profit since Jon Lasseter got fired. What he is good at is getting every once of blood possible by wringing out Disney Park’s rocks.
However, the parks may be something of a Potempkin’s Village. They are flooded at the moment BUT there is a major indication that it is the Europeans that are doing the flooding. The lock-downs in Europe are over for the moment but they don’t know when that will change so they are going to Disney World now, while the getting is good. That is my assumption. The reason I am assuming that is because, historically, Europeans have stayed clear of WDW water parks. There are a number of reasons for that but trust me, they don’t like to go there. And right now Disney is offering the water parks to Florida residents at $35 for a whole day. Usually, it’s about $70. This is a leading indicator that Americans are going to stop coming to Disney Parks in droves.
The Disney death march continues.
Okay, I’m done here.
