While there are some “hard number” metrics to cite when it comes to how a movie is received, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, IMDB, there’s one that gets circled back to more than others when it comes to audience reception: Cinemascore.
This usually measures what’s a “crowd pleaser,” skewing higher in terms of blockbusters a lot of the time as it tries to measure audience satisfaction. Now, Captain America has the lowest Cinemascore in MCU history, a B-, which may not sound that bad, but in context, it definitely is, especially when you see the overall chart. That would be:
edit: the list is missing some entries and has the ratings wrong for others, so I've redone it.
- A+
- The Avengers
- Avengers: Endgame
- Black Panther
- Spider-Man: No Way Home
- A
- Ant-Man
- The Avengers: Age of Ultron
- Avengers: Infinity War
- Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
- Captain America: Civil War
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier
- Captain Marvel
- Deadpool & Wolverine
- Doctor Strange
- Guardians of the Galaxy
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
- Iron Man
- Iron Man 2
- Iron Man 3
- Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
- Spider-Man: Far From Home
- Spider-Man: Homecoming
- Thor: Ragnarok
- A-
- Ant-Man and the Wasp
- Black Widow
- Captain America: The First Avenger
- The Incredible Hulk
- Thor: The Dark World
- B+
- Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
- Thor
- Thor: Love and Thunder
- B
- Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
- Eternals
- The Marvels
- B-
- Captain America: Brave New World
...
Initial box office receipts are pretty good, and better than other low-scored MCU movies, but this still has to be somewhat alarming for Marvel to have a movie received this poorly. As it stands, this is the third lowest scored film on Rotten Tomatoes, the lowest scored film on Metacritic and the lowest scored on Cinemascore now.