The box office return for Captain America: Brave New World has surpassed three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe‘s lowest-grossing movies. That’s probably not the news Marvel Studios was hoping to hear from its first big blockbuster film of 2025, but that’s where we’re at with Captain America: Brave New World. Marvel Studios is looking to rebound after some disappointing box office returns, and there was hope after the success of last year’s Deadpool & Wolverine. While Captain America: Brave New World has its supporters, the theatrical return leaves a lot to be desired. However, the fourth Captain America movie has a higher box office return than three other MCU movies.
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Captain America: Brave New World just went into its fifth weekend in theaters and already gave up the top spot to Mickey 17. There’s also new competition from Novocaine and Black Bag. Brave New World ended the weekend with a domestic gross around $5 million. This places the film ahead of 2015’s Ant-Man ($180 million), 2011’s Thor ($181 million), and 2021’s Black Widow ($183 million).
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All three of these movies come with some caveats. For example, Ant-Man came after the first two Avengers movies and was the first solo movie for a lesser-known hero. Thor came at a time when audiences weren’t familiar with the MCU and before Chris Hemsworth became a household name. Finally, we end with Black Widow, which unfortunately was released right at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Former Disney CEO Bob Chapek made the controversial decision to do a simultaneous release with Black Widow, dropping it on Disney+ for a premium fee at the same time it debuted in theaters. Black Widow star Scarlett Johansson sued Disney over loss of profits since it didn’t make nearly as much in theaters.
Captain America: Brave New World has a disappointing Rotten Tomatoes score
Captain America: Brave New World can’t even boast that it did well with critics. The Rotten Tomatoes score for Captain America: Brave New World also ranks near the bottom of the MCU. At the time of the film’s release in February, it held a 47 percent “rotten” rating on the review aggregator. At the time of this writing, the score has gone up one percent to 48 percent.
ComicBook critic Evan Valentine wrote in a 3.5 star review, “One of the biggest surprises of Captain America: Brave New World was how it lived so well in the shadow of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. There are a few funny moments but, for the most part, Brave New World is a film that takes itself quite seriously and truly dives into its more mature overtones throughout. Gone are aspects of the multiverse and wise-cracking variants muddying up the screen and instead, Brave New World takes a much more grounded approach to the film’s benefit.”
Captain America: Brave New World is expected to arrive on Disney+ around May 15, 2025, which is roughly 90 days after release. Three months is usual timeline for a blockbuster’s premiere on Disney+, with only notable exceptions being major box office hits like Deadpool & Wolverine that stayed in theaters for over 109 days.
May 15th is a Thursday, matching the early Thursday night premiere of Captain America: Brave New World on February 13th as well. Marvel and Disney have stuck pretty close to that 90-day window, which gives theaters ample time to showcase these Marvel Cinematic Universe films before they find a streaming home on Disney+.
How do you rank Captain America: Brave New World to other films released in the MCU? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
