Your Nerd Side Halloween Special"
Horror legend Stephen King has weighed in on The Marvels coming up short in theaters and the subsequent celebration by some Marvel fans online.
While The Marvels boasts a high audience score, it flopped pretty hard with its theatrical debut, setting a new low for Marvel Cinematic Universe movies at the box office. On social media, there have been some posts made by a certain subsect of the fan base that appear to be thrilled about the news. King has now taken to X with a post of his own to share how this reaction troubles him. The Carrie author noted how, even as someone who's not personally into Marvel movies, he takes no joy in seeing The Marvels bomb, and he doesn't understand why others were conversely hoping for its failure.
In his post, Stephen King said, "I don’t go to MCU movies, don’t care for them, but I find this barely masked gloating over the low box office for THE MARVELS very unpleasant. Why gloat over failure?"
Stephen King Has Had Limited Experience Working With Marvel
King's clearly not the biggest Marvel fan, though he does have some limited experience working with the comic book titan. He previously worked on a short charity special called Heroes for Hope Starring the X-Men in 1985, notably introducing the unique villain Hungry. Years later, Marvel would also publish comic books based on King's stories The Dark Tower and The Stand. Meanwhile, MCU stars Tom Hiddleston, Karen Gillan, and Chiwetel Ejiofor are all set to star in the upcoming film The Life of Chuck, which is based on a King-written story.
As for why The Marvels flopped, that's likely not due to any one specific reason, but perhaps a variety of different factors. The rise of "superhero fatigue" is something that even director Nia DaCosta acknowledged to be real, sharing her hopes that the film's "wacky" tone would help The Marvels differentiate itself from other superhero movies. The SAG-AFTRA strike had also prevented the entire cast from getting involved with the promotion of the film, heavily affecting the marketing. While the strike ended shortly before the premiere, allowing for some last-minute promotion from the movie's stars, it may have been too late by this point.
The Marvels is now playing in theaters.
Source: Stephen King on X
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