I"m Genuinely Astounded It’s Been 4 Years Since The MCU Broke A Major Box Office Trend

After some of the recent MCU smash successes, I can"t believe it"s been almost half a decade since the franchise last broke one key box office record. The MCU timeline has been rife with major financial successes, which encouraged the blossoming of the Marvel movie empire as we know it today, and led to a slew of releases that quickly earned audience adoration. With that said, it"s easy to overestimate and underestimate the franchise in equal measure as a result of the high bar set for the MCU both critically and financially.
Since Avengers: Endgame is still the second-highest-grossing movie of all time - beat out for the top spot only narrowly by James Cameron"s Avatar - conversations around the MCU"s upcoming releases are often based on whether it seems the future releases can ever hope to compare up to this behemoth installment and its various record-breaking results. Interestingly, this aligns with conversations about one key box office record for the MCU, which Endgame among other releases notably broke - but which hasn"t been beaten by the franchise since all the way back in 2021.
The MCU Has Had The Highest Grossing Movie Of The Year A Considerable Number Of Times Marvel's Movie History Is A Prestigious One Close As a franchise that"s been a major box office success for the over decade it has been running, the MCU"s biggest hits have perhaps unsurprisingly also been the highest-grossing movie of the year for a selection of previous releases. According to The Numbers" records, the first of these came with The Avengers in 2012, with the Marvel team"s first ensemble release netting a healthy $1.51 billion overall worldwide - cementing the viability of the franchise, and underlining the potential of these crossover installments - no to mention garnering higher results than even The Dark Knight Rises that same year.
While Avengers: Age Of Ultron was beaten out at the box office in 2015 by both Star Wars: The Force Awakens, 2016 marked the next of these achievements. This came in the form of Captain America: Civil War, with its own Avengers-esque crossover plot - combined with a healthy dose of drama from the team fracturing as a result of their divided perspectives on the Sokovia Accords and how to handle them - earning the third Captain America movie $1.15 billion, showing that it wasn"t only Avengers movies that could earn this esteemed place in the annals of box office history.
Given the sheer scale of 2018"s Avengers: Infinity War and 2019"s Avengers: Endgame, it would almost be more of a surprise if either of the two colossal releases hadn"t been the overall highest-grossing movies of those respective years - though Black Panther"s own over a billion dollar box office result means 2018 did have some considerable internal competition for the MCU too. However, both the third and fourth Avengers movie making over $2 billion means they were hard to beat - and hard to replicate, as only one other movie has mirrored this record since.
Spider-Man: No Way Home Was The Last Time The MCU Had The Highest Grossing Movie Of The Year Spider-Man: No Way Home Marks The Last Time The MCU Managed The Impressive & Important Feat Close 2021"s Spider-Man: No Way Home marked something of a resurgence for the MCU after the pandemic inherently limited box office results, with the movie"s overall worldwide box office coming in at $1.9 billion, making it the fourth most successful MCU movie of all time in this regard. While this suggested things were back on the upswing, the franchise hasn"t broken the box office record since, despite having released 7 movies after this point, which has taken the MCU from being midway through Phase 4 to midway through Phase 5 and seemingly close to the end of the Multiverse Saga itself.
This detail is arguably most surprising because Spider-Man: No Way Home was not the last major financial success in terms of Marvel movies. Indeed, Deadpool & Wolverine"s box office brought in a considerable $1.3 billion, marking it as the sixth most financially successful film in the MCU"s history, and one of the now eleven movies in the franchise to have broken the illustrious record of making over a billion dollars at the box office.
However, despite this notable position in the overarching franchise, Deadpool & Wolverine lost out on another record break due to the scale and scope of its competition, serving as a reminder that cinema"s other considerable franchises could oust MCU movies financially with their own projects. Ultimately, Inside Out 2"s $1.6 billion results mean even 2024"s MCU hit didn"t warrant another breaking of this mark for Marvel, leaving it open for the future and putting even more pressure on Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, since the Avengers series has historically defeated this benchmark.
Why The MCU Hasn't Broken This Record Since Spider-Man: No Way Home The MCU's More Recent History Suggests A Few Reasons The Record Hasn't Been Beaten By The Franchise In Some Years Close The MCU has slowed down its release schedule of late. This has meant the franchise has had fewer movies debuting in recent years, and thus had fewer opportunities to potentially break this record once again following Spider-Man: No Way Home - suggesting this may to some degree simply be reflective of the slower approach being taken to paving a path forward.
It also appears that a movie of this caliber tends to need to be an event movie of some sort, with a unique pull that drives audiences to watch it en masse and be part of the overall experience, rather than wait for its streaming release. This would explain why Deadpool & Wolverine came close to being the next MCU movie to hit this mark, and why others haven"t come as close, since their intention wasn"t to be a cameo-filled story drawing on prior Marvel stars who"d been off-screen for years, but rather to continue the Multiverse Saga"s overarching narrative.
While it"s worth considering whether the more mixed reception to the MCU following Avengers: Endgame factors in here - as the prospective higher volatility in reception to MCU installments sets up a more chaotic playing ground than perhaps could be observed before - but this clearly isn"t the main deciding element even if it does affect things, as Spider-Man: No Way Home"s own success can attest to. All in all, the past few years have ostensibly been more of an experimental time than before, which could well itself be building to the next time the MCU breaks this record.
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Marvel Cinematic Universe The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a multimedia superhero franchise that began in 2008 with Paramount's Iron Man starring Robert Downey Jr. The franchise quickly grew in popularity, with Disney eventually buying out Marvel Entertainment in 2009. The MCU consists of dozens of movies and TV shows, most notably Avengers: Endgame, WandaVision, and Loki.
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