re: Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania suffers worst ever second frame drop for an MCU movie

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it has made almost $400 million dollars in 2 weeks.

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$200m budget. It will be moneymaker, but unlikely to crack the $750m worldwide and, again, will not sell many toys or secondary merch.

So, it will beat Black Widow and Eternals and be the 3rd poorest grossing MCU film that cost $200m or more?

Clearly the bean-counters at Disney have figured out they're at the point of diminishing returns and, even worse, this new crop of schlock isn't going to generate sustained, long-term income streams. They're pushing a lot of chips in, every time, and coming away with less and less profit.

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Clearly the bean-counters at Disney have figured out they're at the point of diminishing returns and, even worse, this new crop of schlock isn't going to generate sustained, long-term income streams. They're pushing a lot of chips in, every time, and coming away with less and less profit.

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Thing is, for all the MCU is on the cusp of failing that I've heard since Phase 2(and I would gladly welcome it if it means investments in more original content not in the superhero genre) it is still far and away the most bankable and consistently performing brand that can operate on this level of volume(3-5 movies a year). There is nothing Disney(or any studio for that matter) can pivot to and expect the sort of returns Marvel is providing, even with their bombs.

Even Ant-Man is going to make a profit.

Best I'm hoping for is Disney maybe reallocating one or so film budgets a year and funding 1-2 exploratory blockbuster projects that arent the usual brands.

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$200m budget

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That's only the budget to make the film. That doesn't include marketing. Also keep in mind, Disney doesn't get the whole $400 million in box office.

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Obviously they’re banking on Fantastic 4 and XMen to give it a shot in the arm. Issue being the Fantastic 4 are silly as frick and the XMen have already been ridden into the ground this century by Fox.

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Right - this is my thinking. I remain convinced that FF can be done well, but thus far it hasn't and I have little confidence in the current team to so. If X-Men was untapped, it would be one thing. But, they're about to get the last roundup of Jackman's Wolverine with Deadpool 3 and that movie will be the biggest film since Endgame (IMHO).

IF they can reboot X-Men successfully, they can leverage that as the key team around which to build a future phase. The successors to the OG Avengers aren't going to cut it.

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I remain convinced that FF can be done well

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FF should be the focus of the MCU whenever the "reboot" or bring them into it.

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That's only the budget to make the film.

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Budget numbers are always "production" numbers and sorry if that wasn't clear. The "break even" point for a big film is typically AT LEAST 1.5x the production budget. Studios play games with the gross figures to avoid paying points to talent and other investors by contract. That muddies a lot of these waters, but the rule of thumb remains that, to really be considered a moneymaker, a film has to earn back 1.5 to (increasingly) 2x its production budget.

And these recent MCU films are either barely clearing this hurdle (bad) or failing (even worse).

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And these recent MCU films are either barely clearing this hurdle (bad) or failing (even worse).

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Do you have any evidence a Marvel movie has actually lost money?

It was rumored The Incredible Hulk way back when in 2008 likely did, which is where the whole recasting and not making a standalone Hulk film since came in. But as far as I have read, even Black Widow and Eternals made a slight profit.

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And, see, that's going to be a problem, because almost all of them cost $200m and increasingly $250m, so $400m worldwide is, while not disastrous, is barely worth the effort.

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Well that's likely one thing that could happen, at least with non-event, nonproven characters.

Less bankable properties will get the Shang Chi treatment, which reportedly had only a 150 million dollar budget.

But Disney is one of the most brand-driven, risk-averse companies in Hollywood right now. They will repeatedly give Feige a chance to find consistency, and milk every ounce of juice out of Marvel before abandoning it. Because again, what are you replacing the Marvel slate with??? If you cant answer that, you have your answer for what the future of Marvel looks like: still going to be the core business brand most years.

Disney and Feige will adjust, try new things to drive the average profit margin up, but Marvel isn't going anywhere.

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Less bankable properties will get the Shang Chi treatment, which reportedly had only a 150 million dollar budget.

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They have played games there as well. The trades talked in glowing terms of how "well" Black Widow and Shang Chi did "for the pandemic", when the reality is, they effectively wrote both off and made what they could. It is fair to assess them in COVID terms, but now films are doing very well (i.e. Maverick), just not MCU films.

And this was inevitable after Endgame. A better strategy might have been to pause the output to build up demand. Fewer movies, bigger spacing, but they went the opposite way, particularly with streaming and secondary products. At a certain point the demand is what the demand is and they should meet it at the sweet spot for cost and not shovel huge piles of shite out the door every month or quarter "just because". I think they are doing that sort of slow down, although they are being easy on the brakes.

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They have played games there as well. The trades talked in glowing terms of how "well" Black Widow and Shang Chi did "for the pandemic", when the reality is, they effectively wrote both off and made what they could. It is fair to assess them in COVID terms, but now films are doing very well (i.e. Maverick), just not MCU films.

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What proof do we actually have it was actually a loss for Disney, instead of just coming in under expectations? I can't find any evidence toward it like I can for Hulk. I'd say it's possible for Eternals, but even by your metric of Production x2, that would leave all of the recent "bombs" still at or above break-even:

Black Widow: 200 mil budget
375 BO + 125 Disney+

Eternals: 200 Mil Budget
400 BO

I get studios do a lot of accounting tricks to avoid taxation, but that is different than lying to avoid taking a loss, which they would be able to write off.

And Maverick is one film, Disney looks to have 1-3 blockbusters released every quarter, there is simply not enough Maverick's to fill that slate.


as for the rest, I don't think we are saying anything different, the landscape has changed and Disney needs to adjust. And Disney/Feige have already stated they are oversaturated and acknowledged adjustments will come(mostly on the streaming side). But their slate is pretty much locked in through May of 2025. So what big changes they make will likely be to the 2025 slate following Avengers.

Which, just a hunch, lines up almost dead on with when the supposed X-men legalese goes away beginning 2025.