I don't have to compare BW's box office to pre-pandemic times, I can compare it to movies that were also released during the pandemic and did much better:
F9: 620 million worldwide
Godzilla vs Kong: 465 million worldwide (note: it was only released in the US on HBO Max, in the rest of the world, where it made the by far biggest chunk (78%) of its money, it had an exclusive window in theatres)
Black Widow: 320 million worldwide
Let's look at some factors here: It can't be denied that the MCU is a bigger franchise than the other two. Out ot these three movies BW has the best critical reception and also has better scores in viewer ratings than the other two. Furthermore in all polls it was the most anticipated movie of the summer, see here for example:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottme...er-movie-poll/
And yet you wanna tell me that a movie that belongs to the biggest franchise right now, that was the most anticipated summer blockbuster beforehand and that is better received by audiences than the other two, couldn't have made as much money as these due to the pandemic, when the other two were also released in the same pandemic? How does that make sense? The biggest factor is that the other two didn't have a day and date streaming release in most markets. It's simple as that.
I never claimed that BW would have made Captain Marvel numbers in the current environment but doing better than a movie of the Monsterverse that had more or less the same obstacles should be a given. I mean if you had told someone beforehand that GvK would beat BW at the worldwide box office they would have laughed in your face for such an outrageous claim.
And before you come up with China just scroll to the top of this page, I already covered how the Disney+ release could also hamper the China box office of BW so the likely scenario of a weak result there is mostly on the day and date release, too. Even after the China release it will barely top GvK, if at all, and still be far from F9's result. Are you seriously telling me that this is the best an MCU movie can do right now?