The Marvel Cinematic Universe is renowned for serving some of the most perfectly helmed content with some of the most awe-strucking special visual effects and CGIs.
And to bring content like this to life requires some equally massive budgets, which the MCU notably didn’t quite hold back on and invested in wholeheartedly — be it for its TV shows or simply its movies.
In fact, according to recently derived stats, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has such a free hand when it comes to spending on its content that the astounding budget of all Marvel shows to date is much more than even all four of the films from the Avengers saga combined.
Making it all the more surprising is the fact that some of the most critically panned Disney+ projects actually hold some of the costliest budgets while other incredibly commended ones hold unbelievably cheap investments. Dig in!
MCU’s Disney+ Shows Have a Massive Budget that Surpasses Even the Avengers‘!
Recently, @cosmic_marvel took to X to share the reported budgets of all the Disney+ shows and miniseries from the MCU. And some of the shows’ budgets listed in it are unbelievably high for how they performed among the audiences.
The reported budget of the Disney+ MCU shows:
‘Echo’ – $40M.
‘Hawkeye’ – $150M
‘She-Hulk’ – $225M.
‘Ms. Marvel’ – $150M.
‘WandaVision’ – $225M.
‘Moon Knight’ – $147.9M.
‘Secret Invasion’ – $212M.
‘Loki’ S1 and S2 – $150M-$141M.
‘The Falcon and the Winter Solider’ – $150M. pic.twitter.com/RJm8yjcBoR— Cosmic Marvel (@cosmic_marvel) January 30, 2024
To start from the lowest to the highest, first off comes Echo: While the miniseries gained massive fan approval, what’s astonishing is that it was made on a budget of only $40 million. Then there’s Loki season one, which was yet another terrifically performing show that was made on $141 million.
Moon Knight follows this — yet another spectacular show — which was made on $147.9 million; further followed by Hawkeye, Ms. Marvel, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and Loki season 2, all of which stand on a $150 million budget.
While all of these above-mentioned shows below $150 million have been fairly good, with Loki season 2 an exception for its massive budget because its performance was worth every cent, this list gets fairly costlier and uglier as it proceeds.
Succeeding all these shows is none other than Secret Invasion, with a budget of $212 million, which is followed by WandaVision and She-Hulk, both of which rest on a budget of $225 million respectively.
Although WandaVision‘s budget is acceptable, considering how it was commended both generally and critically, the other two series failed to stand up to the mark and up to their respective massive budgets, which are notably more than even DCEU’s The Flash‘s budget of $200-$220 million.
What makes all of this all the more interesting is the fact that the MCU spent a total of a whopping $1,590.9 million or $1.59 billion only on nine of its Disney+ series (a lot of the most costlier ones out of which were utter failures), exceeding even the budget for all 4 of its Avengers movies.
As per Box Office Mojo, the budgets for The Avengers, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame were $220 million, $250 million, $325 million, and $356 million respectively.
Combining them all, their total budget rests at $1,151 million or $1.15 billion, which is still less than the accumulated budget of all of MCU’s Disney+ shows despite having more star power and pure CGI content.
Fans React to the Astounding Budget MCU Spent on the Disney+ Shows
The fact that Marvel made some of its best shows on the cheapest budgets and some of its worst shows on the heftiest budgets seems a bit too ridiculous to begin with. What makes it all the worse is the fact that the worst shows actually hold budgets even more than some of the movies.
As expected, fans are having as hard time believing this news as they had when they realized that Robert Downey Jr.‘s Iron Man wouldn’t be coming back to the MCU.
Thus, taking to X, fans have expressed their reactions to the astounding budgets that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has kept for its Disney+ shows, some of the costliest ones of which have been cited by fans as being “utter garbage”. Here’s what they have to say:
Echo was great
Hawkeye was great, but too expensive
She Hulk was garbage
Ms Marvel was fun, but too expensive
WandaVision was great but way too expensive
Moon Knight was beyond forgettable
Secret Invasion was fine but too expensive
Loki was amazing & you could feel the budget…— sir dingus waldorf (@alexthaalien) January 30, 2024
the 2 most expensive were arguably the worst lmfao
— Alex⚜️ (@sempygetshis) January 30, 2024
Secret Invasion and She-Hulk seem the biggest budget waste. The others atleast have justified budgets, although Hawkeye could use costs under 100M.
— Ryan Paul (@MegaTook) January 30, 2024
Where did they spend 225m on she hulk? It certainly didn't go on effects or writers
— Andrew Dallin (@adallin) January 30, 2024
Look at She hulk budget and Loki Season 1 and 2 budgets.
It's a travesty and disgrace. Those should have Gone to Loki and Moon Knight.— Ibrahim Naser (@IbrahimFish25) January 31, 2024
Disney didn't care about echo yet it was better than she hulk b secret invasion combined kol
— Alvin.. (@Alvin315114081) January 30, 2024
To be fair this isn't much different from their movies, and they're longer. But She-Hulk and Secret Invasion especially are kinda egregious when they turned out to be arguably their 2 worst projects
— Bio21 (@LeBio21) January 30, 2024
Some were shot during the pandemic, some had expensive reshoots. Some had high amount of cgi assets. Producing ain't cheap.
— cortez (@corteztheg) January 30, 2024
Well, for starters, the MCU should trek back to figure out just where everything went wrong with the way they were spending on their content, especially since most of its best projects have been made on some of the lowest budgets of all.
