MCU News & Notes

Let's take a look at Doctor Strange 2's box office (via Box Office Mojo):

• Opening Fri-Sun: 185 domestic (265 international)
• Second Fri-Sun: 88 domestic (47.5%)
• Current Total: 723 (310 domestic, 413 international)

How did the opener compare to Spider-Man 3? That film opened 260 domestically and 341 internationally, so close to 30%/25% lower. Spidey had legs, but Doctor Strange 2 hasn't had that kind of impact (even if some people were satisfied with the keys dangled in front of them). Will it hit a billion? I don't think so, but it will pass another underperformer in The Batman (768). Will Marvel make any serious changes to fix their issues? There's no sign of that yet (my expectation is just more and more memberberries, as they haven't yet hit their own Netflix Armageddon). It's getting harder and harder for me to get anecdotal feedback on MCU productions, as fewer people I know go to see them (the Doctor Strange 2 count is currently at one).

One other statistical note: I've noticed for awhile that Phase Four has generally performed better in the US than elsewhere, and you can see that trend here as well, although the difference is more subtle than in the case of Shang-Chi. This is worth keeping in mind when I discuss Nielsen numbers below, since those are exclusively American.

Midnight's Edge has an interesting breakdown of what they believe the lengthy re-shoots for the film were intended to do. According to their sources, they were to fix America Chavez and to provide an arc for Doctor Strange (who apparently had none in the rough cut). The former idea matches rumours during the re-shoots themselves (cf, although those rumours also claimed they were adding more cameos, which was not true), and certainly the latter would explain why even in the released film Strange is a passenger in his own movie. Despite the changes, the reception of Chavez has been what you'd expect given the low caliber of Phase Four writing.

Sutton has claimed for quite some time (cf) that John Krasinski will be Reed Richards and doubled down on that point recently (his fate in Doctor Strange 2 notwithstanding). He claims Krasinski pulled out of an extension for his Amazon show to take the job, although Sutton is unsure if he will direct the film or not (given that Jon Watts has walked). It's hard to be excited by the idea given how poorly the character was treated in Doctor Strange 2.

Moon Knight's second episode went up in the Nielsen's ratings (to 608 minutes watched, which put it 3rd vs other original shows and 8th overall in a very depressed streaming market). This is higher than the bulk of Hawkeye's episodes, but nowhere near it's two highest viewed. The third episode was a touch higher (638, 3rd and 7th), and about the same for its fourth (630, 4th and 7th), but nowhere near peak Hawkeye (which was nowhere near either Loki or WandaVision). In a lot of ways tracking Nielsen is trivial (given the limitations and the fact that other metrics clearly demonstrate the show's struggles), but I think it's good to have the numbers to compare.

I've seen the She-Hulk trailer, which I thought was awful, but is consistent with Phase Four, so if you've enjoyed it thus far, the show will likely work for you.

One of the creators I used to watch periodically was Angry Joe (his Doctor Strange 2 review is linked above). He made his career as a video game reviewer, but years ago added movie and show reviews to broaden his audience. Looking at Social Blade, up through July of 2020, this strategy worked very well, but since then, outside occasional spikes from major game reviews, his subscriptions have flatlined and views have been on a rollercoaster well below his peak. I suspect the issue for Joe is that he tends to like everything and plenty of other people already fill that niche--his show/film analysis isn't deep so there's nothing to sink your hooks into. This material is simply content, so there isn't a ton of pressure for him to improve on it, but he'd be far better off if there meaningful debates between he and his buddies.

Thanks to a friend of mine I was able to answer my speculation about Kamran disappearing off of Youtube: turns out he's simply been too busy to make the rounds (as a working screenwriter, that's an option he has that few other personalities have).

This article was written by Peter Levi