In this YouTube commentary, the host argues that the roughly 68% second‑week box‑office drop for Captain America: Brave New World is typical when compared to other MCU releases such as The Marvels (78%), Quantumania (69.9%), Black Widow (67.8%), Thor: Love and Thunder (67.7%), Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (67%), Eternals (62%), Spider‑Man: Homecoming (62.2%), and earlier Captain America and Thor titles. He notes that while the film may not reach a billion‑dollar gross, crossing the $400 million mark would likely make it profitable. The host critiques the prevailing negative critical narrative, suggesting most professional reviews label the film as “fairly good” rather than terrible, and contends that political motivations—particularly DEI and “woke” narratives tied to Anthony Mackie’s comments—skew criticism. He draws parallels to how audiences separate an artist’s work from personal controversies (e.g., Mel Gibson). The commentary also situates the film’s performance within broader industry challenges: inflation, rising ticket costs, competition from other releases, streaming alternatives, and possible superhero fatigue. Ultimately, the host invites viewers to consider these factors before judging the film’s success, urging a nuanced view of box‑office drops, profitability, and the influence of politics on film criticism.
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Welcome back to the channel. I hope you're having a great evening. And so, uh, I want to talk today about Captain America: Brave New World and that the drop that, uh, it's taken at the box office is actually pretty normal, right? I know a lot of people would say, oh, but this is a, um You know, this, this movie is in the crapper. I've heard some people say, uh, you know, it's hit, um, uh, 80, 87, 88% drop, which isn't true. Uh, it's only dropped about 68%. Uh, it's still the number one movie, all right? And, uh, just to kind of put it into context, uh movies that have dropped in similar fashion, uh, higher than Brave New World. Uh, The Marvels dropped 78%, right? Now this is the same Marvels that people say that, uh, is better than Captain America: Brave New World. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, 69.9%, right? And then you have Captain America: Brave New World 68%. Okay, okay, that's slightly higher than some of your, um, other Marvel films, right? But then you get Black Widow at 67.8%, drop, which isn't far off. Thor: Love and Thunder, 67.7%. Doctor Strange, right, in the Multiverse of Madness, which I thought was an excellent film, 67%. Right, that's Doctor Strange. Eternals, right? Yeah, we— people know how they feel about Eternals. But Spider-Man— and that's interesting that the Eternals only dropped 62%, um, you know, once— yeah, which people thought that was a horrible film, right? You know, was that better than, you know, Captain America: Brave New World? But anyway, Spider-Man: Homecoming A Spider-Man film, 62.2%, and Captain America: The First Avenger, 61.4%. Uh, The First Thor, 60%, which was— I thought was a great movie. I thought The First Thor was a great movie. Some people like Captain America: The First Avenger. I thought it was boring. But as you can see, in the context of the amount of money that these films made, some of these films still went on to make a billion dollars. Right? So I'm not saying that Captain America: Brave New World, you know, ever going to make a billion dollars. That's not my point. But to, to get into profits, it's gonna have to cross that $400 million threshold. And I'm pretty certain that, um, you know, um, it's, it's possible for it to do that, and it's probably going to do that, uh, And so in that respect, uh, this isn't as big of a deal as people are making. Okay, the, the next point I would make, uh, with Captain America: Brave New World beyond that is that despite, uh, the criticism, the heavy criticism of Captain America: Brave New World, um, I, I still have yet to find uh, good critics, right? And critics on average, right? I'm talking about professional critics now that come out of the movie and say that it was a terrible movie. Most of them say it was a fairly good movie or okay movie, right? But now think about what that means, right? When you say it's a fairly good movie, it's an okay movie, you're pretty much on the level on terms with movies like Spider-Man: Homecoming, Captain America, Thor, and all that, right? Because a lot of their— a lot of the films, these MCU films, we kind of felt the same way. We didn't walk out of them going, oh, this is the greatest superhero film we ever saw. We went, it was a pretty good movie, it was all right, right? We didn't go, these are great, awesome billion-dollar movies, right? We said they're pretty good movies, they were okay, it's okay, a standard, all right. MCU film, right? Is that pretty fair to say? So what— so that, that kind of brings up my, my big issue with this, guys, right? It's not that I want to be an apologist for this film, right? I pride myself on giving accurate criticism to a film, and if it's a terrible film, saying it's a terrible film and the parts that were terrible. And this isn't a perfect film at all, right? Uh, the context of what I was saying was that in reference to what Marvel films, how they were ranked, how they were ranked as number one, this film based on that data should get it closer to that number one spot. And when you couple that with to me, harder degrees of making it a superhero film, like including the Hulk in it. My point of view was that shouldn't that make it then, uh, uh, you know, more difficult to achieve, uh, than say a film that didn't have to go through so much of the fantastical, right? Um, You know, like I've said in earlier videos, one reason that The Dark Knight, the Christopher Nolan Dark Knight, is considered one of the best superhero films of all time is that it was so believable to watch on screen. Like, we weren't watching fantastical things, right? And I think that when a film has to do fantastical film, we— it deserves a little bit of grace and fairness and the challenges that come with that, right? Now, with that said, right, that's the only reason I'm being an apologist for this film is because I think there are political motivations to criticize this film outside of the point of it being a good film, right? Now, let me give you another example. Some people bring up the point that Anthony Mackie's comments about what Captain America meant to him kind of fed into that Disney narrative, right? That DEI narrative, that woke narrative, right? And that upset a lot of people, right? And me personally, if I was Anthony Mackie, I wouldn't have said that, right? Knowing I need to sell tickets for that movie, right? I, I would— at the same time, I wouldn't have said America and Captain America is the greatest thing since apple pie. But what I would have said was that what Captain America represents is a place that America is trying to get to but hasn't got to yet, right? So in the idea of trying to be that beacon of light and achieve that, that's what it means, that it is trying to be that, that it is not that. Right? This is the same America that's been responsible for war atrocities for the last 100 years, right? And there's a lot of dark history with America, right? So I understood that part what Anthony Mackie was saying, but you know, if you're going to play Captain America, you do have to bring it back to the hope of, of what that uniform stands for, right? And you You know, nobody's perfect. He didn't do the best job of that. But at the same time, uh, Mel Gibson, right, he did the, uh, films like Apocalypto, Passion of the Christ, he did Braveheart. And nobody denies that Mel Gibson does, uh, awesome films, right? That he is an awesome actor, that he is an awesome director. And I believe that you can watch Mel Gibson productions and appreciate his work without being concerned about some of his past racist rants, some of his run-ins with the law, right? Uh, I, I believe that a good critic can separate those things. What we're seeing is we're seeing people who can't. You know, and I believe the politics is playing into that. And what it's done is we're getting, uh, to me, this is just my opinion, but we're not getting honest reviews of this film. And that's how come it's so weird to see critics walk out the film and go, it's not that bad, it's actually a pretty good film. You know, it's not a perfect film, but it's certainly, uh, a better Marvel film than many, many, many, many that we've seen, right? In fact, uh, to be honest with you guys, The Marvels, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Black Widow, Thor: Love and Thunder, Doctor— well, I'll take Doctor Strange out because I really like Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness, so let's take that one out. Eternals, uh, Spider-Man: Homecoming, wasn't very impressed with that. Captain America: First Avenger, wasn't very impressive. I'll take Thor out too. Right? The original Thor. I like the original Thor, and I like Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. I really did like those films, right? And they are a little bit higher. But the rest of these films, I don't think they were even better than, uh, Captain America: Brave New World. I do not, guys. And, uh, um, you know, if you, if you do, we maybe was watching different movies. I thought these movies were terrible, right, for the most part. But, uh, yeah, those are my thoughts on that. I'd like to hear you guys' thoughts as well. No, it, it, it's pretty normal, on par, as you can see with how many movies have dropped. Uh, I think people are just trying to, uh, you know, uh, you know, I, I think there can be a kind of contagion of uh, like a virus of ideas, right? Uh, especially a lot of what's going on with this Disney woke stuff, right? There, there, there are like these, uh, YouTubers and channels that, uh, and they got a lot of subscribers. Some may have a million subscribers and things like that, but when you really look at it in the grand scheme of things, a lot of these guys are trying to make it like they represent every voice online, right, about what people want to see in these films, right? And I don't think that's true, right? I don't think that's true. Now, where it is true, um, Captain America: Brave New World made $28 million, right, the second week. What's also true is that all the movies it went against, right, made around the same thing. Nobody had a breakout, right? So the movie industry as a whole is, is, uh, somewhat suffering, right? If you look at it that way, you know, it was no— generally what happens, right, or from what my— what I've seen in, in movies coming out is that if you have a big movie like Captain America: Brave New World fall off, there is some movie going on at the time. Like they got what they got, Nosferatu out now, the vampire movie. They got Paddington Bear, you know, the kid movie. Uh, what else they got? They got something else, I can't think of it, but that they're competing with, right? And usually what will happen if the big star movie fell off— remember Captain America: Brave New World never got out of slot 1, it's still the number 1 movie, it didn't drop any slots— that means every other movie had to go down as well. Nobody leaped out. It wasn't a Barbie, uh, Oppenheimer type situation where people weren't sure what was going to happen with Barbie and Barbie and Oppenheimer just shot to the roof. It was nothing like that. I think it's also important to keep in mind when we compare this to other films, like how people compare it to, uh, you know, Inflation, right? They say, oh well, you know, uh, you're comparing it to movies happened several years ago or a decade ago. And, uh, because of that, uh, you know, you gotta account for inflation. And, uh, if you do that, it's really performing a lot worse, right? But we also have to consider that we're in a time where our grocery prices are through the roof. This isn't like a good economy. Uh, if you take your family to the movies, you're spending $200. I'm surprised people are going to the movies at all, to be honest with you, with the onslaught of home theaters, uh, Vanses and streaming at home and all of that. Uh, I'm surprised these ticket sales are keeping up just overall in the mid— in the movie business, going out to see a movie in general. Um, but you can also consider that that might have something to do with it, right? Um, you know, uh, but all in all, uh, if, if, if there is a problem in cinema overall, or if there's a problem in the MCU, right, uh, some people are saying superhero fatigue, whatever it is, uh, then you couldn't really 100% put that on this film that's getting the back end of it, right? Uh, that there could be so many other factors there, right? But I guess the point I'm trying to make is that, and even if you look at the, the Marvel ranking, right, Captain America: Winter Soldier ranked number one, it made $700 million, but there were other Marvel movies that made more than that around that same time frame. That weren't ranked number 1. So that should also tell you guys, number 1, that a movie doesn't have to be considered necessarily a great movie just because it has huge ticket sales, right? It can still be a good movie. It can still hold the number 1 slot with low ticket sales. That's what we're seeing with Captain America: Brave New World now, right? So you can have that as well. right? Uh, so don't think that you can't, you know, have that. Uh, and, uh, it's still time for Captain America: Brave New World to make up a lot of money. But that's— those are just some of the points I want to make, guys. Again, I'd like to hear all what you all think. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button. Don't forget to hit that like button so we can keep bringing you, uh, interesting information like this as it becomes available. All right, guys, take care of yourselves.
