According to CNBC, Eternals topped the American box office with $71 million in its first weekend. That’s the good news. According to IndieWire, the Chloé Zhao-directed film underperformed by roughly 10%, raising doubts about the unfavorable reaction building up to its release and the prospect of Marvel weariness.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the last MCU film to have a lower opening weekend was Ant-Man ($57.2 million) in 2015.
Eternals was the worst-rated MCU film on Rotten Tomatoes prior to its theatrical release, a position previously held by 2013’s Thor: The Dark World. It also scored the lowest CinemaScore from the audience of any MCU film. Early reviews suggested that Eternals is a divergence from the Marvel template, with Forbes film writer Scott Mendelson claiming that the picture “plays like Marvel in the DCEU [DC Extended Universe] sandbox.”
After the whole Phase 4 schedule was pushed back owing to the pandemic, Eternals is the third MCU film to be released in just over four months. In its first weekend, Black Widow grossed $80 million, while Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings took in $75 million. Sony’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage earned an unexpected $90 million last month, adding to the MCU weariness storyline.
Despite the fact that the Eternals’ local box office has been a source of concern, the picture has performed better than predicted worldwide, grossing more than $90 million without the support of China or Russia, which has seen yet another wave of theater closures due to the epidemic.