Senior in superhero outfit leaning on tree in park

(Getty Images)

Critical hit

Unlike American audiences, critics seem to have long grown tired of Marvel movies

The new “Captain America” grossed $100 million in the US, despite pretty woeful reviews.

2/17/25 9:43AM

“Ugly and artless,” “Marvel’s rock bottom,” “the most feckless, spineless blockbuster of the last decade” — it’s fair to say that if you were of two minds about splashing out on a ticket to see “Captain America: Brave New World” over Presidents Day weekend, the critical reception might have been enough to convince you to save your cash… and yet.

The new movie, the 35th installment in the Disney-owned Marvel Cinematic Universe, seems to be building on the studio’s impressive 2024, at least if its opening weekend is anything to go by. Disney is forecasting a $100 million domestic box office gross over the extended Presidents Day weekend. If accurate, the top four highest-grossing movies for the four-day period ever would now all be from the MCU. The film is also tipped to take more than $192 million around the world on its first weekend, which is no mean feat considering the critical mauling it received prerelease.

Slop machine

Anyone who’s kept up with the blockbuster discourse on how film buffs and reviewers feel about Marvel films will be well aware of the various criticisms leveled at the productions, though things feel like they’ve escalated around some recent releases, with Vulture arguing that the Disney-owned studio is now just a “giant slop machine.” Of course, millions of us love slop, even if we pretend not to sometimes.

While critic scores on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes might not make particularly great reading for recent releases like “Brave New World” (51%), “The Marvels” (62%), and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” (46%), millions of moviegoers are still turning out to watch them, and many of the films are still turning out to be great earners for the House of Mouse. Bankrolling a movie with an unproven director, script, and characters feels risky in the current box office climate. Making Marvel movie number 36, 37, or 38? Probably a safe business bet, even if it won’t win you many Oscars.

Hyunsoo Rim

WOULD LOVE TO CONNECT

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OpenAI set to air a minute-long Super Bowl ad for a second consecutive year, per WSJ

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Having aired its first-ever paid ad at last year’s Big Game, the ChatGPT maker is set to take another 60-second ad slot during NBC’s broadcast on February 8, according to people familiar with the matter.

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Tamagotchis are making a comeback, 3 decades after first becoming a global toy craze

If you were a ’90s kid, you might remember the craze around little egg-shaped toys with an 8-bit digital screen, displaying an ambiguous pet-thing that demanded food and attention.

Now, on the brand’s 30th anniversary, the Tamagotchi — the Japanese pocket-sized virtual pet that launched a thousand cute and needy tech companions, from Nintendogs to fluffy AI robots — is making a minor comeback.

Tamagotchi Google Search Trends — Sherwood News

Looking at Google Trends data, searches for “tamagotchi” spiked in December in the US, up around 80% from just six months prior, with the most search volume in almost two decades.

While the toys are popular Christmas gifts, with interest volumes often seen ticking up in December each year, the sudden interest might also have something to do with the birthday celebrations that creator and manufacturer Bandai Namco are putting on, including a Tokyo exhibition that opened on Wednesday.

Game, set, hatch

More broadly, modern consumers appear to have a growing obsession with collectibles (see: Labubu mania), as well as a taste for nostalgia (see: the iPod revival, among many other trends).

But, having finally hit 100 million sales in September last year, the brand itself is probably just glad to exist, giving a whole new generation the chance to experience the profound grief of an unexpected Tamagotchi death.