re: Are superhero movies finally wearing out their welcome?

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I think Infinity War and Endgame has warped people's minds a little bit. Those movies hitting 2 billion was a massive outlier. Most movies made about 600-900 million besides the large team-up films.

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You're mostly right, of course.

If we go by unadjusted worldwide gross/budget:

Endgame is the easiest winner, $2.8b/$400m - that was a 7:1 return

Infinity War was $2.0b/$400m so a 5:1

(OG) Avengers was $1.5b/$200m so a 7.5:1 return

Avengers AOU was $1.4b/$400m so a 3.5:1 return

Effectively the Avengers "quadrilogy" cost $1.4b to produce, figure another $1.7b to $2.0b "other" costs and returned $7.7b (a raw ratio of about 5.5:1) - so that made something like $4.25b in gross profits after production, marketing, etc. PLUS those movies (characters) sold a shite ton of merch.

Spiderman:NWH (NOT A MCU!) was $1.9b/$200m so a 9.5:1

(OG) Black Panther, Iron Man 3 and Civil War are roughly comparable, $200m to $250m films, returning $1.15b to $1.35b (with Civil War costing the most and returning the least of the 3) - these movies are clear profit makers, with ratios of 6 or 6.5:1 for IM3 and BP and 4.5:1 for CW.

It goes off the rails then with only Captain Marvel (with Endgame looming, as a reminder) crushing it (other than Spiderman: FFH, again, not MCU) with a 7.5:1 ratio and Dr. Strange:MoM pulling around a 5:1 ratio.

GOTG 2, BP:WF and Thor:Ragnarok were comparable performers, but WF cost $50m more than GOTG 2, which ate most of the profits (although it didn't lose money) and Thor:Ragnarok costing only $180m so that helped its bottom line.

When the budgets for these things were in the $150m to $175m range, they could get by grossing $600m to $750m. Financially it doesn't make sense to make one of these at $200m or $250m if it isn't going to make a billion. Too much risk and too little reward.

There will not be hype for another Endgame without all the necessary groundwork being done. They are unwilling to do the groundwork.

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The quality of the Marvel movies since Endgame just hasn't been good.

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While this is true, the quality was on a downward slope prior to EG as well. The MCU had become one formulaic robot suffering from lack of creativity, and the movies were very hit or miss for a while.

Captain Marvel, Ant Man 1-2, Thor Ragnarok (yes nerds I know you love this one), and Age of Ultron were all average at best to downright terrible (looking at you Ultron and CM).


Many like to think everything pre EG were great, but it was extremely inconsistent. The difference between then and now is that there are no great ones anymore.

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To me, I think it's more that shitty movies are wearing out their welcome. The quality of the Marvel movies since Endgame just hasn't been good.

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I think this is the answer. It's not like anyone got tired of watching fun, action flicks...it's that after End Game and that story was over and they straight up killed off the biggest heroes they'd spent 20+ films making people love, they decided to start filling the roster with backbenchers that could fill their diversity quotas rather than continuing to make movies that catered to their actual audience, rather than their hoped for one. This lead to shitty movies which alienated the base and the numbers have born that out.

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If they got back to the basics like they did early in the MCU then the movies would likely perform better.

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I think this ship has largely sailed. Mostly because they are unwilling to forgo intersectional politics in their movies at this point, and that is what is largely dooming them. Because of that too many people have walked away never to return.

See also: Star Wars.

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Okay, so I'm sure they're at a $285 to $300 million range budget, so it's going to have to make $625m to $650m to BREAK EVEN.

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Capt Marvel in 2019 was reportedly 150-175 million (plus marketing) and made over a billion worldwide on box office.. so you think the sequel's budget will be double AND it also won't turn a profit?

I have no interest in seeing it, I didn't even watch Capt. Marvel in the theater, but it won't bomb unless every mathematical and statistical scenario you run it through is like extremely extremely way off.

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Wakanda Forever cost $250m. Antman #3 cost $200m. If you don't think it will cost at least $250m, I just don't know what else to tell you.

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You said 250-300.. Ant-Man's fx budget is probably significantly more than the Marvels, so being generous I think a 200 mil budget (before marketing) is max.

Wakanda Forever was a 3 hour movie with an incredible amount of fx that came off Black Panther which made 1.3 billion off of a 200 million budget in 2018. .

You think The Marvels budget will have a larger % increase over the original's budget than Wakanda.

I was never great in math, but your numbers are pretty wonky.

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There are about three different superhero movie scenarios and they've done them over and over. That spiderman movie was alright, but look at the numbers for it!

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The 1.9 billion it made?

What about the numbers?

The MCU isn’t at its peak when the hype
Will push Captain Marvel to a billion dollar box office, but the first 2 Thor Movies, the first two Captain America movies were insane box office all timers.

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but the first 2 Thor Movies, the first two Captain America movies were insane box office all timers.

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I have no idea where you would get support for this conclusion.

Thor barely tripled its budget. Made money, but it wasn't a homerun or "insane box office" all timer. $450m WW gross on a $150m budget. Thor 2 was better, $650m/$170m, yet again, 2012 - 2013 dollars but it did quadruple its money. The first 2 Captain America films cost roughly $310m and made about a billion (combined). That's solid, but not stellar. Civil War was technically Captain America 3, but was unofficially an Avengers movie, so that helped.

QJenk's point is valid - the last billion dollar grosser was Endgame and it was almost $3bn. No one expects these individual hero films or small team ups to do $3bn or even $2bn, but they can't crack $1bn and they're spending money ($200m - $250m) as if they can.

So, back to things like MoM, GOTG 2 and Wakanda Forever - those films are profitable and no one will balk at that ROI, but the further down the list you go, the worse it gets, especially recently.

(ETA: Sammy, you're right about the Spiderman movie - was almost a 10 banger - as commercially successful as a Cameron snoozefest.)

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Obviously, if it is closer to $200m, then a $800m worldwide gross would make it a pretty solid hit.

But, I refuse to believe The Marvels is a budget MCU, $185m film until I see hard numbers. And, I can't see how it breaks a billion worldwide with what we already know about this film and these characters' box office appeal.

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Let me reiterate the first thing I said, which you almost have made a case for yet I'm getting downvotes and conflicting arguements..

It won't bomb.

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That’s probably because I typed “Were” instead of “weren’t” so my point made no sense.

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I keep running the numbers to make it work for Marvel. Outside of the Avengers "quadrilogy" and, surprisingly the 3xGOTG films (assuming 3 does get to ~$1bn on a $250m budget), it was very hit and miss. The Spiderman movies are much more profitable as a whole and they're not even MCU.

The trend line of WW gross is very troubling - since Endgame (and excluding Spiderman films):

Black Widow (COVID*) - $379m
Shang-Chi (COVID*) - $433m
Eternals (COVID*) - $402m
Dr. Strange:MoM - $955m
Thor:L&T - $760m
Black Panther: WF - $858m
Ant Man 3 - $463m

That's something over $5b - but they cost $1.5bn. Now, if Chadwick had lived (or they had done a great job of recasting him), movie would have broken a billion, I'm fairly certain. Just hard to sell Not Black Panther to the general audience.

I just think expecting Ant Man to mak a billion isn’t realistic.

But like Iger said, maybe that means you don’t need an Ant Man 3.

Maybe focus on your flagships and the first movie for side characters.

But even Iron Man didn’t get a 4th movie. So maybe it’s time to get Thor a bigger part jn a side project like Iron Man in Civil war. Which is what I thought they would do with GOTG.