Director Nia DaCosta has a surprising reaction to The Marvels‘ box office performance two years after the movie was released. The Captain Marvel sequel became the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s biggest box office bomb of all time, only grossing $206 million against a reported production budget of $270 million.
During an interview with Deadline for 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, DaCosta was asked about what her assessment is when she looks back at The Marvels. She reveals that she only has gratitude for the experience and enjoys the relationships she made along the way, which even led to her visiting the Avengers: Doomsday set. Check out DaCosta’s comments below:
It’s so interesting, because the Marvel machine had so much chatter around it. But when I look back on it, everyone tried their best. Everyone was trying to make a great film…and I will say I’m really happy to have those relationships. I was just visiting the Avengers set last summer, which was really fun, catching up with the producers, seeing the Russos, and some of my friends were in the movie. So it was really nice, despite how everything went with the box office and the reviews, knowing that the relationships are so good. I look back and everyone tried their best and everyone was trying to do the right thing, and it is what it is.
Despite the heat that she took for The Marvels‘ box office numbers, along with the fact that it had a mixed reception from critics and fans, DaCosta has a positive outlook because of the enduring relationships that came from it. This includes numerous individuals working on Avengers: Doomsday alongside directors Joe and Anthony Russo.
On Rotten Tomatoes, The Marvels has a 63% score from critics and 79% from audiences.
DaCosta’s comments come with a potential tease of characters appearing in the Avengers: Doomsday cast as well. Since she says she has friends in the movie, this could include The Marvels‘ Brie Larson as Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers, Iman Vellani as Ms. Marvel/Kamala Khan, or Teyonnah Parris as Monica Rambeau. None of these stars have been confirmed to appear in the movie as of this writing.
Regardless of how it fared at the box office, The Marvels helped set up Avengers: Doomsday by bringing back Beast/Hank McCoy (Kelsey Grammer) into the MCU during the post-credits scene when Monica wakes up in another universe. Grammer is confirmed to have reprised the role for the upcoming Avengers film, which will focus heavily on the multiverse.
While DaCosta’s most recent comments about making The Marvels are positive, she has been more candid about the challenges she faced in prior interviews. She told The Hollywood Reporter in August 2025 that “One of the issues I had with Candyman and Marvels was the lack of a really solid script, which is always gonna just wreak havoc on the whole process.” DaCosta co-wrote The Marvels‘ script alongside Megan McDonnell and Elissa Karasik.
Co-writing the script did not allow the filmmaker to make her plan for The Marvels become a reality, though, as she previously shared with ComicBookMovie.com that “there was a certain point when I was like, ‘Ok, this isn’t going to be the movie that I pitched or even the first version of the movie that I shot.'”
Filming 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple appears to have been a far smoother process for DaCosta compared to The Marvels. Nevertheless, she still sees the superhero movie as a valuable experience. The movie has also played an important role in shaping the trajectory of the Multiverse Saga, which will conclude with Doomsday‘s sequel, Avengers: Secret Wars.
- Release Date
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November 10, 2023
- Runtime
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105 minutes
- Director
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Nia DaCosta
- Writers
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Megan McDonnell, Elissa Karasik, Nia DaCosta
- Producers
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Kevin Feige, Louis D’Esposito, Victoria Alonso, Matthew Jenkins, Jonathan Schwartz
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Carol Danvers / Captain Marvel
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Teyonah Parris
Monica Rambeau
