Popverse's top stories of the day

• Lore Corner: Let's talk about that WILD reveal in the Marvel's Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man finale
• WATCH:  Watch Nickelodeon’s official SpongeBob SquarePants 25th anniversary celebration from NYCC 2024!
• MEMBERS ONLY:  For Your Consideration: Emilia Pérez is a controversial awards frontrunner, but its musical heart has proven herself for decades and shown up in Pixar movies, Mariah Carey diss tracks, and moving ballads

News that Captain America: Brave New World had a solid opening weekend must have been welcome at Marvel Studios, who have been trying to right the MCU’s box office fortunes. However, there is a catch to the movie’s impressive numbers so far. Despite managing to secure the top spot at the US box office a second week in a row, Captain America: Brave New World has had one of the worst second-week drops in MCU history.

In its second week in cinemas in the US, Captain America: Brave New World lost a whopping 68% of its total from the previous week. That is the third worst drop in Marvel Studio’s history, just behind The Marvels (78%) and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (69.9%). Anthony Mackie’s first outing as Captain America after a decade playing the sidekick is still likely to pull a profit but it certainly won’t be the megahit that Marvel wanted it to be unless something drastic changes in the coming weeks.

Between poor reviews from both fans and critics, it isn’t exactly surprising to see Captain America: Brave New World struggling at the box office. The fact that it planted its third-act twist all over the marketing materials and felt too close to Captain America: The Winter Soldier will sour the word-of-mouth marketing that the movie needs to keep its box office steady after release. This doesn’t mean it is a bad movie, of course, but it does mean that Marvel is still looking for the MCU magic in the post-Endgame era.

Consider this a meta post-credits scene for Marvel fans - the four key articles you need to read next to continue the thrills:

• How to watch the Marvel Cinematic Universe in release or chronological order
• The best Marvel Comics stories of all time
• All the MCU movies ranked from best to worst
• Our weekly Marvel insider's column, Marvel Matters