While “Madame Web” Unravels, the Bob Marley film has a strong start.

Over the holiday weekend, the drowsy American box office finally opened its eyes. The heartwarming musical biography “Bob Marley: One Love” was expected to gross $33.2 million on Friday and Monday, for a healthy total of about $51 million since its Valentine’s Day premiere, according to Paramount Pictures.

On the official X account for Marley, who passed away in 1981, there was a jubilant post that said, “Excuse me while I light my spliff.”

“One Love,” which took around 70 million dollars to produce, managed to overcome unfavorable reviews because it was released in what has become known as a box office sweet spot in recent years: tales that are both fresh and nostalgic. (There has never before been a big-screen musical biopic about Marley.)

However, the film industry was generally anything from exuberant. The other new wide-release film of the weekend, “Madame Web,” which is based on a minor Spider-Man comic character, reinforced the sentiment that moviegoers have been sending out lately: the boom for comic book characters is over. As of Monday, “Madame Web” has sold $17.6 million of tickets, bringing its total revenue since its arrival on Valentine’s Day to $25.8 million, according to Sony Pictures.

“Madame Web” had some of the lowest-ever ticket sales for a superhero film, which has been one of Hollywood’s most consistent cash cows for decades. In contrast, “Elektra,” which is seen as a superhero blunder that will go down in history, made $12.8 million in its first three days of release in 2005, or almost $21 million in modern currency.

It’s not like the superhero genre is done. Rather, according to David A. Gross, a cinema consultant who writes a weekly on box office figures, “the superhero universe is no longer expanding.” He stated that the most well-known characters will always draw crowds, citing the early enthusiasm for Marvel Studios’ upcoming superhero sequel “Deadpool & Wolverine.”

In its first 24 hours of publication, the first “Deadpool & Wolverine” trailer broke all previous records with over 365 million views on the internet.

Reviews for “Madame Web” were appalling; one reviewer compared it to “Cats” among superhero flicks. Featuring an all-female cast lead by Dakota Johnson and directed by S.J. Clarkson—whose prior work has primarily been in television—the movie was also hampered by some of the same prejudice that prevented female-focused movies like “The Marvels” and “Ghostbusters” (2016). People took great pleasure in dissecting “Madame Web” in general and Ms. Johnson in particular on social media and on certain cinema websites.

It wasn’t a financial disaster for Sony, especially when contrasted with “The Marvels,” which Disney made for an estimated $220 million but only made $200 million in total last year. (Theaters keep the remaining portion of ticket sales after studios receive around 50% of them.)

“Madame Web,” a thriller aimed at young ladies, required roughly $80 million to produce, in part because it did not rely much on expensive special effects. (Clarity is the only superpower she possesses.)Over the weekend, “Madame Web” earned an additional $26 million in partial worldwide distribution.

Tickets for “Bob Marley: One Love,” which starred Kingsley Ben-Adir and was directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green (“King Richard”), were sold for approximately $29 million overseas, where it was also showing in limited theaters.

Some weekends this year, theaters have been empty, a result of fewer wide releases, Oscar-focused art films that have not made their way into the public, and big-budget failures like “Argyle” that failed to draw crowds. According to Comscore, a company that gathers box office data, theaters in the US and Canada have sold roughly $764 million worth of tickets so far this year, which is 15% less than the same period last year.

With the exception of the pandemic year of 2021, the slowdown was especially noticeable on Super Bowl weekend, when domestic theaters only made $38.9 million. This is the lowest amount for a Super Bowl weekend since at least the mid-1980s, when comprehensive box office records started to be compiled, according to Comscore.

In the upcoming weeks, a number of significant films, such as “Dune: Part Two,” will be released. However, the box office is anticipated to remain weak, in part because studios postponed the release of many movies until March due to the labor strikes that halted work for a significant portion of the previous year. For example, “Disney’s Snow White” was originally scheduled to debut on March 22. Disney pushed it back, citing construction problems, to March 2025.

Mr. Gross stated, “This isn’t another industry existential crisis—we’ve already gone through those. “Over the past few years, moviegoing has demonstrated its worth. Fixing this release schedule-driven, product-driven issue will take some time.