I thought this was a really interesting dive into some of the problems plaguing Marvel, how Covid derailed things, and the pursuit of money overall. Like, the idea that a film makes less than half a billion dollars is a failure? Yowza.
The sprawl is also real and I think it crystalized some of my own feelings about watching Marvel content more on the spectrum of being closer but not entirely on the side of obligation vs. excitement. It all feels aimless right now. Individual arcs are interesting, but Avengers: Endgame was four years ago.
For some context with the Infinity Saga…
Phase One: 2008 to 2012 (four years), culminating in an Avengers movie across six movies total.
Phase Two, 2013 to 2015 (three years), with an Avengers movie basically at the end (and Ant-Man two months later) across six movies.
Phase Three, 2016 to 2019 (three years), across 11 movies and ended with two Avengers movies and a post-script with Spider-Man.
So our average is about six movies to one Avengers.
And with the Multiverse Saga…
Phase Four: 2021 to 2022 (two years). across seven movies and eight seasons of television, ended by Black Panther 2.
Phase Five: 2023, with currently two movies and two seasons of television (one of which is a Season 2), with one more movie and a second season of What If coming before the end of the year.
Just the movies alone make that ten movies in 2-3 years with no Avengers team-up to tie everyone together.
The shocking thing to me as I confirmed dates/counts on Wikipedia is that I forgot we’re in “Phase Five”. I have all these individually good stories but there’s no buzz about a “big” team-up movie anymore. Heroes are just doing their thing and stopping world-ending events on their own or with minimal assistance.
Maybe they’ll prove everyone wrong about this strategy when they do another Avengers movie in two years after another pile of movies but it feels more like they’re trying to force another Endgame “Assemble” with characters we’re not as connected to when the time comes.
Like, the idea that a film makes less than half a billion dollars is a failure?
It’s not as crazy as you think.
First, the reported budget for a movie is almost always only the production budget. The general rule of thumb is that the marketing budget is 1x the production budget, especially for high profile releases like these. So a Marvel movie that cost $200m to make cost another $200m in advertising, meaning it needs to net the studio $400m to break even.
Second, the reported box office totals we get on sites like Box Office Mojo represent gross ticket sales, before exhibitors take their cut, and before high profile filmmakers and stars take their backend points. Christopher Nolan notably got 20% of the gross revenue for Oppenheimer, though this is a pretty extreme example.
Third, movies are a risky business. So you need your hits to be big hits to make up for the money you lose on expensive duds. Even if a new Marvel movie makes a $50-$100m net profit, that isn’t enough to cover the huge amount of money lost on something like Dial of Destiny.
I thought this was a really interesting dive into some of the problems plaguing Marvel, how Covid derailed things, and the pursuit of money overall. Like, the idea that a film makes less than half a billion dollars is a failure? Yowza.
The sprawl is also real and I think it crystalized some of my own feelings about watching Marvel content more on the spectrum of being closer but not entirely on the side of obligation vs. excitement. It all feels aimless right now. Individual arcs are interesting, but Avengers: Endgame was four years ago.
For some context with the Infinity Saga…
And with the Multiverse Saga…
Just the movies alone make that ten movies in 2-3 years with no Avengers team-up to tie everyone together.
The shocking thing to me as I confirmed dates/counts on Wikipedia is that I forgot we’re in “Phase Five”. I have all these individually good stories but there’s no buzz about a “big” team-up movie anymore. Heroes are just doing their thing and stopping world-ending events on their own or with minimal assistance.
Maybe they’ll prove everyone wrong about this strategy when they do another Avengers movie in two years after another pile of movies but it feels more like they’re trying to force another Endgame “Assemble” with characters we’re not as connected to when the time comes.
It’s not as crazy as you think.
First, the reported budget for a movie is almost always only the production budget. The general rule of thumb is that the marketing budget is 1x the production budget, especially for high profile releases like these. So a Marvel movie that cost $200m to make cost another $200m in advertising, meaning it needs to net the studio $400m to break even.
Second, the reported box office totals we get on sites like Box Office Mojo represent gross ticket sales, before exhibitors take their cut, and before high profile filmmakers and stars take their backend points. Christopher Nolan notably got 20% of the gross revenue for Oppenheimer, though this is a pretty extreme example.
Third, movies are a risky business. So you need your hits to be big hits to make up for the money you lose on expensive duds. Even if a new Marvel movie makes a $50-$100m net profit, that isn’t enough to cover the huge amount of money lost on something like Dial of Destiny.
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