Stephen King defends The Marvels, blames the low box office on "adolescent fanboy hate"

Brie Larson as Captain Marvel in The Marvels
(Image credit: Marvel Studios)

Stephen King took to Twitter to defend The Marvels, which now holds the record for Marvel's lowest opening weekend at the box office.

"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?" King tweeted.

He then added, "Some of the rejection of The Marvels may be adolescent fanboy hate. You know, 'Yuck! GIRLS!'"

Directed by Nia DaCosta, the newest Marvel movie sees Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) team up with Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani), and Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Paris) after they suddenly start swapping places with each other every time they use their powers.

The film brought in $47 million at the US box office, falling behind The Incredible Hulk's $55.4 million opening and Ant-Man's $57.2 million opening (with figures not adjusted for inflation). The Hollywood Reporter poses that because of this, Marvel is now looking to only release one superhero film in 2024, which is Shawn Levy's Deadpool 3.

In order to combat superhero fatigue, Marvel has released a special Spotlight banner that aims to produce shows that require zero knowledge of MCU history in order to understand and enjoy.

The Marvels is in theaters now. For more, check out our coverage:

Lauren Milici
Senior Writer, Tv & Film

Lauren Milici is a Senior Entertainment Writer for GamesRadar+ currently based in the Midwest. She previously reported on breaking news for The Independent's Indy100 and created TV and film listicles for Ranker. Her work has been published in Fandom, Nerdist, Paste Magazine, Vulture, PopSugar, Fangoria, and more.