Marvel Cinematic Universe Figure Discussion

Marvel just pisses too much money in the budget and advertising. They need to go back to thinking like they did with the first Iron Man movie which literally had half the budget but they had the right people to figure out how to do more for less $$.

Hell, look at Star Wars, and Godzilla Minus 1, both of which had small budgets, but were amazing to watch on the big screen. GM1 cost between $10-15M to make just a couple years ago. Disney/Marvel spent $7M for a 30 second Superbowl commercial. The fans know the properties. There's no reason to be spending $100M on marketing!
 
Lilo has done record-breaking box office (but still not enough to prevent Disney from enacting mass layoffs yesterday :rolleyes: ) but I don't know the above assertion is fair because Lilo had a four day opening weekend which did indeed put it above Thunderbolts entire take, but if you count the three-day it did not out-gross Tbolts entire run.

Splitting hairs, but the perspective is accurate - Lilo outgrossed Tbolts in four days. BUT - Tbolts has done good business given what it *is*. I don't know what it's production and marketing costs ended up, but it primed the quality pump for FF and Avengers next year. As long as Ironheart isn't branded atrocious (deservedly or not, TBD!), Tbolts did what it was supposed to do - make a Marvel product feel good again. (Forever props to Agatha for doing this as well.)
 
Schizm said:
Lilo has done record-breaking box office (but still not enough to prevent Disney from enacting mass layoffs yesterday :rolleyes: ) but I don't know the above assertion is fair because Lilo had a four day opening weekend which did indeed put it above Thunderbolts entire take, but if you count the three-day it did not out-gross Tbolts entire run.

Splitting hairs, but the perspective is accurate - Lilo outgrossed Tbolts in four days. BUT - Tbolts has done good business given what it *is*. I don't know what it's production and marketing costs ended up, but it primed the quality pump for FF and Avengers next year. As long as Ironheart isn't branded atrocious (deservedly or not, TBD!), Tbolts did what it was supposed to do - make a Marvel product feel good again. (Forever props to Agatha for doing this as well.)
Click to expand...
"The Thunderbolts movie, released in 2025, had a production budget of $180 million. Additionally, marketing costs are estimated to be around $100 million, bringing the total cost to around $280 million. To reach profitability, the film needed to gross significantly more than its total cost, which it has not yet done. While it has grossed over $369.5 million, some reports suggest it may still be heading towards a loss. "

Well, when splitting hairs, remember Thunderbolts opened pretty much on it's own, and Lilo opened up against Mission Impossible, so had they opened on their own, they probably would have thrashed Thunderbolts even harder.
 
I just realized I may have compared Iron Man's budget to the full budget (with marketing) for Thunderbolts.

EDIT: Marketing budget between $50-75M - Go in the middle and that makes it's total budget around $200M, which is still around $80M less than Thunderbolts.
 
TFitz said:
Well, when splitting hairs, remember Thunderbolts opened pretty much on it's own
Click to expand...
I get that point, but Thunderbolts was not released in a vacuum. If it had come out in 2019 or something, I'm sure it would have been a completely different story. Following several disappointing movies surely had impact on its success.
 
Ru1977 said:
I get that point, but Thunderbolts was not released in a vacuum. If it had come out in 2019 or something, I'm sure it would have been a completely different story. Following several disappointing movies surely had impact on its success.
Click to expand...
I agree. I still think the stink from The Marvels is permiating. Between the all women agenda with was basically force fed to everyone, to choosing Ronan-lite as the enemy, to being basically a 1.5 hour long movie (if you don't include credit time) for a whopping $375M estimate. That idiotic "we must sing for them to understand us" still makes me cringe hard.
 
Ru1977 said:
Ah Christ. Ya lost me.
Click to expand...
Sorry, but it was what it was. That's not why I didn't like the movie, though. The movie just sucked for some of the reasons I posted, but it was a hard "no boys allowed" agenda push. It's one highlight was Iman. I loved her in her Disney+ series and I loved her in this movie, but damn near everything else just stunk.
 
It's definitely disappointing to see Thunderbolts lose that much money, especially since, in my opinion, it's one of the best Marvel movies in ages. It's a shame that such deep material often feels like it can only be relegated to side characters, since the "hero" of the movie usually has to meet certain criteria or be infallible. I hope it doesn't send the message that people aren't interested in deeper messages like mental health- I think, if anything, it has to do with people's familiarity with these characters being less than the bigger names.

That said, just to play Devil's Advocate, the notion of a "success" in the streaming age has taken on a different meaning. Something can crash and burn at the box office, but find a huge audience on streaming, sometimes even enough to make the studio greenlight a sequel. With prices going up, people are being more picky-choosy with their moviegoing experiences, and if it's not something they're dying to see, will often wait until it hits one of the fifty billion apps they're already paying for. I feel like these days it takes a lot longer to truly know what a "successful" movie really is- it may not be one that necessarily makes its money back, but one that finds a big or devoted audience. I think if studios really wanted their movies to make more money, they'd leave them in theaters longer. The turnarounds lately are wild- less than a month sometimes, so what's the incentive to go to the movies, beyond a bigger screen and louder sound? Goodness knows audiences are getting worse and worse. As much of a champion of supporting physical media and supporting theaters as I am, even I sometimes feel like I may as well just wait a few weeks and watch in the comfort of my own home.

I also think that the lack of merch for movies might be killing hype too, in a roundabout way. It used to be where you could go to any toy store either before or after seeing the movie and grab toys from it. Now we're lucky if we get toys for a project within 6 months after release. That's gotta affect a movie's profits- and certainly toy company's profits. Yeah, studios often pay a lot for marketing, but again, some folks have ad-free streaming platforms, or they don't really pay attention to commercials, so in this age of diminishing attention spans, I feel like it takes more reminding.
 
Ehh, I liked The Marvels. I thought the whole K-pop dance thing was charming. I have consistently enjoyed Brie Larson as Carol Danvers. Villain was meh but that’s true of like 80% of MCU movies.
Mostly I just like when these movies try something new.
🤷‍♂️
 
AceofKnaves said:
Ehh, I liked The Marvels. I thought the whole K-pop dance thing was charming. I have consistently enjoyed Brie Larson as Carol Danvers. Villain was meh but that’s true of like 80% of MCU movies.
Mostly I just like when these movies try something new.
🤷‍♂️
Click to expand...
I'm with you. The list of musicals I can sit through, let alone enjoy, is incredibly short, so I was ready to cringe through that... And didn't at all. I've got to be one of the few others that likes Larson as Danvers, but really loved the dynamic between the main three, with Kamala being a major favorite. My only complaint with Marvels may be 'put back the stuff you cut'.
 
But what was cut was exactly what you just described cringing at - a two minute longer song and dance number on Aladna. So you are asking to cringe more.

But that's the thing with The Marvels - I can't pinpoint where it went wrong in pre-production, whether it's the basic story conceit, the script, the director, COVID - or something else! Everything was wrong with this movie EXCEPT for all of the previously-established actors - the new ones, Dar-Benn and Yan, were bad to a detracting degree.

It's literally a culmination of all Marvel's worst instincts EXCEPT it somehow came out mostly enjoyable, which is where Quantumania utterly failed.

Adding in this thought about merchandise: both of these movies got screwed merchandise-wise because of their schedules being shifted multiple times. BUT - the fact there were so little products released for The Marvels other than the three Marvel Legends action figures, Funko Pops!, figural keychains and a Burger King McDonald's (I even had to fact check that!) tie-in line-up is a big clue something was off the whole time. They purposely switched her into a dress JUST so they could merch it and then only McD's felt like doing it. And Quantumania ended up getting even less. Warning warning!
 
Last edited:
I think the movies are trying to skew in the creative direction of the All-New All-Different era of the comics, which, whether you loved it or hated it, can't argue that it wasn't very successful and was largely abandoned and discarded. Some characters created over that time are still around, but are now mostly in supporting roles. I'm certain some of these movies brought in some new fans (The Marvels and Ms. Marvel especially) as they were specifically targeted at newer demographics beyond fans of the Infinity Saga. Unfortunately, this new direction has been met with subjective quality criticism - but objectively most have been financial failures, comparatively. Comic and movie fans who have been life-long supporters feel alienated when their favorite legacy characters are sidelined in favor of a newer characters specifically designed to appeal to a new and different audience. In response, the brand takes a hit financially as those who spent billions on the Avengers and Spider-Man movies tune out. Projects involving Legacy characters (Spider-Man, Wolverine) or based on quality established franchises (GoTG) still succeed, while most everything else flounders.

What do we learn from this? Hopefully, Secret Wars will do what it did in the comics: bring Legacy characters back to the forefront and make use of the new characters that established a sizable following. Hard to say which of those they will be given the performance of some of these films and shows. The one thing you can't argue with is that nerdy dudes made comics popular. Nerdy dudes spent a shitload of money on them, and then the movies which spawned from them. Since the goal seems to be financial success, it would be smart to remember to at least try to appeal to the original audience, at least from time to time. By all means, produce content meant to appeal to different audiences - fill your boots. But don't throw your hands up in the air when movies that are led by new characters meant to appeal to a different audience are not embraced by the billion dollar audience who established the franchise initially.
 
Schizm said:
But what was cut was exactly what you just described cringing at - a two minute longer song and dance number on Aladna. So you are asking to cringe more
Click to expand...
But I didn't cringe at all, as I said. I expected to, then didn't at all. So bring it on.

Also, that wasn't the only scene cut.
Enforcer said:
nerdy dudes made comics popular. Nerdy dudes spent a shitload of money on them, and then the movies
Click to expand...
Sure but nerdy dudes weren't solely responsible for the MCU movies that made a billion each.
 
Ru1977 said:
But I didn't cringe at all, as I said. I expected to, then didn't at all. So bring it on.

Also, that wasn't the only scene cut.

Sure but nerdy dudes weren't solely responsible for the MCU movies that made a billion each.
Click to expand...

Not solely, but probably represent a significant portion of the demographic.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top