If you could use only one word to describe the MCU today, then the most apt definition would be ‘Cinema’, that’s how successful Marvel Studios has been with their cinematic universe. Even during the times of the COVID-19 Pandemic, Scarlett Johansson’s appearance in her standalone film Black Widow made a whopping $379 Million globally.
But even with such a staggering number in Marvel Studios’ coffers, it doesn’t mean that the film was anywhere near successful for the company. In fact, along with the actress’ film, there are three other MCU big-screen projects that the studio will consider a failure since their commercial metrics demand each film makes more than $500 Million at the box office.
Black Widow Will Remain A Failure For Marvel Studios As It Didn’t Achieve The $500 Million Mark
Nobody has to dictate just how successful the Marvel Cinematic Universe is in modern times. Becoming synonymous with the definition of cinema itself, Marvel Studios is valued at a mind-boggling $29.5 Billion today. Thus, the metrics used to determine whether a film was a commercial success or not have also been elevated to astronomical heights.
This has labeled Scarlett Johansson‘s 2021 Black Widow as a box office failure in the eyes of Marvel Studios and its parent company Disney.
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In a recent report by Paul Dergarabedian, a box office analyst at Comscore (via Variety) it was stated that all these years since the MCU has been making some of the most commercially successful films in history, the commercial scale with which each film is measured for its success has kept growing.
This has led to recent times when if a film makes less than $500 Million at the box office, it is deemed to be a disappointment for Marvel Studios. He said:
“With Marvel, it used to be as close to a guarantee as you could get, So, going all in on the budgets made sense. ‘Guardians 3’ was a bit overlooked in how successful it was. But that had James Gunn and Chris Pratt, and I think star power is becoming more important. Then there was ‘Quantummania’ with $476 million. Anything under a half billion dollars is viewed as a disappointment. And these overreaching expectations are a result of so much success over the years.”
Since the budget of these films has also significantly shot up, the bar to break even has risen to the next level. Therefore, along with the Lucy star’s film in the franchise, these three films will also be considered box office failures despite making hundreds of millions.
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1: Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings
Released in the same year as the aforementioned Johansson starrer, Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings was a massive statement by Marvel Studios with Simu Liu as the lead as fans praised it. Still, with a theatrical release during a time when most of the world was on lockdown, the film went on to earn a whopping $432 Million globally. Alas, it couldn’t break the $500 Million mark.
2: Eternals
Another film from the COVID-19 era, Eternals took the same hit as the previous two films because of the lockdown. This too, was a theatrical release, but less due to the Pandemic, and more because of poor execution and lack of plot that the MCU is known for were the reason why it failed. Still, it made a whopping $402 Million at the global box office.
3: Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania
Coming to the most recent bust for the MCU, with the beginning of the franchise’s Phase Five, people had high expectations from the first film in the new era, which happened to be Paul Rudd‘s Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania. Even with a big theatrical release and marketing tactics, the film still fell hard on its face for being a poor execution and lacking inspiration. Therefore, while still making $476 Million, the film was a critical and commercial disaster.
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The Marvel Cinematic Universe, streaming on Disney+.
