Sam Wilson makes the jump to lead hero in his own Captain America movie. The film has an uphill battle to fight. Will it come out victorious?
While January very rarely sees blockbuster releases, February can sometimes become a month to capitalize on people going to the movies for Valentine’s Day. The first big movie of the year has dropped and Captain America: Brave New World has finally hit screens after a long delay. The film seemingly has an uphill battle since there have been a lot of stories about how the film was plagued by many rounds of reshoots, while there’s been a noticeable lack of enthusiasm around Sam Wilson’s big-screen debut as Cap. However, the trailers suggest that Brave New World aims to emulate the grit of one of the highest-rated entries, The Winter Soldier.
Deadline is now reporting that Captain America: Brave New World is off to a solid start with an early Thursday total of $12 million at the box office. While it does not quite match up Marvel’s last February release, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (which started early previews with $17.5 million), it does outdo Captain America: The Winter Soldier back in 2014 with a $10.2 million in Thursday previews. The Winter Soldier would go on to gross $95 million that weekend; however, the plane of cinema and streaming was also a different creature back then.
There is some stake being placed on the social media reach of movies with an analytics corp, RelishMix, tracking engagement for this film. Across TikTok, Facebook, X, YouTube and Instagram, Brave New World has engaged with 600 million followers. When compared to the box office juggernaut of Deadpool & Wolverine, which reached 1.15 billion followers, it isn’t too shabby. Other MCU movies like Thor: Love and Thunder had tracked for 963 million followers. Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson was mainly a secondary character before this movie, so it remains to be seen if the numbers should jump in the future.
Unfortunately, our own Chris Bumbray felt pretty underwhelmed when it came time to review it, stating, “Brave New World is definitely proof that Marvel needs to shake up the formula, as years of Marvel shows on Disney Plus, and too many uninspired films have diluted the brand. While not a disaster, Brave New World feels like more of a chore to sit through than it should be. If you manage your expectations, there’s some fun to be had watching Ford and Mackie go mano-a-mano, but Marvel movies shouldn’t feel this dull.” You can read his full review HERE.
