The reason(s) The Marvels flopped at the box office

The Marvels couldn’t be promoted by the cast during the strikes

The Marvels may have made box office history but it also made a different kind of history, as it was the first Marvel Studios movie to release so close to Hollywood strikes. While both the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes ended prior to the movie’s actual release, the latter ended just a few days before it hit movie theaters. That meant that there was no time to organize press tours, screenings featuring the actors, or television appearances for Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris, or Iman Vellani.

Television is a huge form of promotion. Both daytime and late night talk shows attract major audiences, so being able to have the actors promote the movies on them would have had quite the impact on how many people knew the movie was coming out, and could have resulted in more of them heading out to see it in theaters.

An appearance from Brie Larson on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon was organized as soon as the strike had ended, but that was on Friday night, when the previews and opening day numbers were already beginning to filter out. Its fate had been set in motion by that point.

We’re not saying that press tours and TV appearances would have prevented the movie from underperforming, but it could have gone a long way in helping it at least match some of the projections made in recent weeks. The Marvels just didn’t have the visibility that previous MCU movies did, and that visibility could have helped it a great deal.