Eternals sure sounds like it should have been a critical slam dunk: an against-the-grain Marvel entry from a director who recently won a slew of Oscars. It even has images filmed not in a giant Atlanta warehouse but in the great outdoors, which blew the mind of Kevin Feige, to the amusement of many. Instead, the epic, from Nomadland’s Chloe Zhao, has received the worst reviews in MCU history. And now, as per The Hollywood Reporter, even audiences are giving it the franchise’s lowest marks. But of course, neither its critical nor commercial reception is really all that bad.
According to THR, audiences awarded Eternals with a B average. No, that’s not that bad. A lot of movies would love to get a B from audiences. But it’s still not a great sign that moviegoers are actually enjoying the second-longest MCU title, after Avengers: Endgame, which was longer than most Martin Scorsese movies. Indeed, it’s the lowest such rating since the original Thor, which “only” received a B+ back in 2011.
None of this seems to be impacting the box office, at least not yet. Eternals grossed an epic $30.7 million in its first official day of release, $9.5 million of that coming from Thursday previews. That’s close to pre-pandemic levels. But there’s still word-of-mouth, and if audiences feel the same way as critics do about the film — that it’s, you know, still fine — then it’ll probably only gross what’s still considered a ton of money.
(Via THR)