Thor Love and Thunder Box Office Continues

Thor Love and Thunder had a 68 percent dip in its second-weekend box office, continuing a bleak theatrical trend for Phase 4 of the MCU.

Thor Love and Thunder second-week box office haul continue the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase 4’s bleak trend. The fourth solo trip for Chris Hemsworth’s Thor is the second in the franchise to be directed by What We Do in the Shadows’ Taika Waititi.

It begins with Thor having a mid-life crisis and pondering whether or not to continue being a superhero when the appearance of the malevolent Gorr, the God Butcher, forces his hand (Christian Bale).

Thor must collect some old pals to face this tremendous opponent, including Korg (Waititi), Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), and his former sweetheart Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), who now wields Thor’s hammer Mjolnir and is known as The Mighty Thor.

Thor Love and Thunder is also the sixth theatrical excursion for the MCU’s Phase 4, which includes practically every project released after the events of 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, culminating with the Disney+ live-action series WandaVision in 2021.

This phase has struggled to connect with viewers since there is presently no overall idea of where these stories are heading. While some films in Phase 4 performed well both critically and commercially, such as Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Spider-Man: No Way Home, these new films have received some of the lowest Rotten Tomatoes ratings in the entire MCU, with Thor Love and Thunder ranking near the bottom as the fourth lowest-rated of all 29 films.

Thor Love and Thunder are expected to gross roughly $46.5 million at the US box office by the end of this weekend, according to Deadline.

This means that the film has plunged 68 percent from its first weekend, which brought in a higher-than-expected $144 million.

This is one of the MCU’s worst week 2 declines yet, joining the previous Phase 4 movies like Black Widow (68%) and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (67 percent ).

This 68 percent dip does not always spell the end of the film’s entire box office run. When Spider-Man: No Way Home was buffeted by Christmas competition in its second week at the box office.

It saw a similar decline before surging back up to become one of the highest-grossing domestic pictures in history.

Thor, on the other hand, isn’t competing during a holiday weekend, and its only new competition is the mid-range drama Where the Crawdads Sing, which has a completely different demographic, and the animated feature Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank, which is doing terribly.

Thor Love and Thunder appear to be taking the brunt of fan angst with Phase 4. As the third film in the franchise to star a returning MCU character while still being part of the forward momentum of the post-Endgame chronology.

It faces the weight of diminishing returns, whether justifiably or not. With all four planned MCU theatrical movies including returning heroes, it will be interesting to see whether this dip persists or if it is just a hiccup on the road to MCU triumph.