The Marvels Box Office Points To A Major Problem In Hollywood, Not Just Marvel

The Marvels Box Office Points To A Major Problem In Hollywood, Not Just Marvel
“The Marvels” arrived in theaters this past weekend and the box office posted by the film has led to much warranted discussion. The latest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a sequel to 2019’s “Captain Marvel,” opened to just $47 million domestically, well below expectations. It also only took in $63.2 million overseas, meaning the movie had a global opening of $110.2 million against a budget said to be anywhere between $220 and $250 million — before marketing. That’s bad news for Marvel Studios and Disney, to put it lightly.
That said, an opening weekend in the $50 million range shouldn’t have to immediately spell disaster. Any movie that can pull in more than $100 million around the world in three days clearly has a great deal of appeal and a sizable audience. The bigger problem here is that the movie business is a game of relativity. A movie like “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” can be considered a success by making $180 million worldwide because it only cost $70 million to produce. A movie like “The Little Mermaid,” meanwhile, is at best a mixed bag despite taking in $569 million worldwide because of its huge $250 million budget.
Unfortunately for Disney (and Hollywood in general), bigger budgets have become the norm in recent years. It used to be that a $200 million budget was a rare exception worthy of raising an eyebrow over when such a thing did occur. Now? Something like “John Wick: Chapter 4” getting made for $100 million seems downright thrifty, even if that is still arguably a bit expensive for a franchise that made its hay in the mid-budget realm. But who’s going to argue against $440 million worldwide? It worked out in that case. It doesn’t always, however, and that’s the problem that Marvel Studios and everyone else is having to contend with right now.