It seems all but certain that Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will be another hit for Marvel and Disney but there are several reasons why it might even be able to eclipse the incredible box office success of Spider-Man: No Way Home. Since Disney became home to Marvel Studios on December 31st, 2009, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has grown to become the king of the box office. However, the astonishing success of Avengers: Endgame was followed by less-than-stellar box office performances, particularly from Eternals and Black Widow which led to the feeling that perhaps their crown was slipping.

The release of Spider-Man: No Way Home changed that. With its delirious mix of fun, emotion, and nostalgia it was a huge success, earning $1.891 billion at the box office despite the Covid-19 pandemic. This wasn’t exactly a surprise as Spider-Man has been an iconic superhero for years and Tom Holland’s portrayal was already popular with audiences. In addition to this, the appearance of much-loved villains like Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe), Doc Ock (Alfred Molina), and Electro (Jamie Foxx), as well as the two previous big-screen Spider-Men (Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield) made the movie a full-blown cross-generational crowd-pleaser. The difficulty Multiverse of Madness faces is in trying to follow that success. The huge box office takings for Spider-man: No Way Home means it will be difficult to beat. Of course, difficult isn’t the same as impossible and early projections, according to BoxOfficePro.com, are for the opening weekend takings to be up to $205 million. Admittedly, this would fall short of Spider-man: No Way Home’s North American opening, it would still be a strong opening for the movie to build upon since it has some specific advantages that even Spider-man: No Way Home didn't have.

Related: What Happened To The No Way Home Villains When They Returned Home?

Multiverse of Madness is the summer’s first really big release, which could be a distinct advantage given that it will have few obvious box office rivals in the weeks following its release. More than this, its supposed running time of just over two hours is over twenty minutes shorter than Spider-Man: No Way Home. This means it could be possible for theaters to fit in more screenings during those lucrative early weeks. While this advantage is unlikely to be too significant, it is still an important factor for Multiverse of Madness' potential box office success and means that the movie could well go on to beat No Way Home.

Even so, it will ultimately be the audience who dictates whether Multiverse of Madness can get close to Spider-Man: No Way Home’s level of success. If it is viewed by moviegoers as a direct sequel to Doctor Strange, then it is likely to make less money than it would if it is seen as an MCU team-up movie. The latter tends to show that a bigger box office haul seems to correlate with more Marvel heroes and villains appearing onscreen together. To casual fans, Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is a more familiar character precisely because of these types of movies. In particular, as a result of the intrigue created by his appearances in Avengers: Infinity War and Spider-man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange seems to be better positioned for a bigger box office success. In addition, the marketing of Multiverse of Madness has extensively teased the appearances of Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and Professor X (Patrick Stewart), while theories have circulated about potential appearances by multiversal variants of Erik Killmonger, Captain Carter, and even a version of Tony Stark played by Tom Cruise.

Whether any of these rumors turn out to be true or not, the key metric for audience reactions will be the quality of the movie. If Multiverse of Madness is seen as a direct sequel to Doctor Strange, Wandavision, and Spider-Man: No Way Home and if audiences love it in the same way that they loved Avengers Endgame then Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will be another in a long sequence of MCU successes. If it also eclipses Spider-Man: No Way Home in the process it would also prove definitively that the MCU remains king of the box office.

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