The Marvels epic battle wasn't in the film, it was at the theater and they lost

Captain Marvel, admittedly remains one of my most favorite stand-alone films in the MCU. When the sequel was announced, I was naturally excited. I haven't seen the sequel yet and after it's opening weekend, I'll wait for the Disney+ premier.

The Marvels hit the box office this past weekend and it was sadly, a "marvelous" flop. The film grossed under $50 million making it the worst opening for any MCU film in the history of the new universe that premiered some 13 years ago with Iron Man.

Expected to make around $80 million, a low prediction as well, the film managed to push Antman and the Wasp: Quantum Mania out of the MCU cellar.

Making the entire thing worse from a future perspective, word of mouth hasn't been great either and that doesn't make for a long run that stabalizes the failure during the opening weekend.

The biggest question? Why did The Marvels not draw a bigger box office.

There are several theories but one stands out more than any other. The film simply draws on way too many character backstories that people don't really care about.

Centered around three unique characters, Captain Marvel, Ms. Marvel, and Monica Rambeau, the film divides its story from three different universes and three backstories.

We all know Captain Marvel's story as it was fleshed out in Captain Marvel. Monica Rambeau made an appearance in that film as Carol Danvers' best friend's daughter. Ms. Marvel wasn't a part of that film.

We jumped to the modern timeline where we meet Rambeau again as part of the storyline in WandaVision, a Disney+ limited series that introduces Rambeau as an adult to the Marvel world. A short time later, Disney again released Ms. Marvel on Disney+, another television series.

With The Marvels, all three combine into the film and frankly, those fans who haven't watched the accompanying series on Disney+ may not have a lot of interest. I personally had no interest in watching Ms. Marvel.

Adding to all of this was the actors' strike that prohibited the cast from promoting the film. For most films, I would 100% buy into this reason but we are not talking about a relatively unknown feature film, we are talking about the MCU and a major player, Captain Marvel, from the original Avenger series.

Will The Marvels make an upward turn in its second weekend? Probably not. The film appears to be dying a slow death at the box office.

If there is any good news, it might just end up on Disney+ a lot sooner than expected and then we can all see how bad or how misjudged the film actually is.