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Wolverine Co-Creator: "There’s no such thing as “superhero film fatigue”"
- Thread starter ManaByte
- Start date
When it has a 250 million dollar budget and probably a 100 mill ad spend, they gotta make SEVEN HUNDRED MILLION just to break even! These inflated budgets are really re-writing what constitutes a success in Hollywood. How much does the theater keep, foreign sales, and the LACK of dvd/blu-ray means the box office is about all they get, streaming "revenue" is dubious at best.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
www.boxofficemojo.com
845 million is underperforming?
Those films DEFINITELY benefitted from anticipation of the characters featuring in future team-up films. Captain Marvel and Ant-man as well. You can see the drop off of BO for their respective sequels (GOTG excepted I think and Dr. Strange2 did pretty well) that a big chunk of the audience was just there for the Avengers tie-ins, not the IP directly.
You can see here the 3 GOTG flicks tracked quite closely to each other but GOTG2 had a nice bump. Of course the increased budgets means they made LESS MONEY each film.
Guardians of the Galaxy Franchise Box Office History - The Numbers
Guardians of the Galaxy franchise box office earnings
www.the-numbers.com
Doom85
Member
The rule is “2.5x the budget”. Which would be 625 million, not 700 million. So that’s 220 million profit roughly. Underperforming when discussing box office means it HAS to go below the profit, otherwise we’re just fucking with terminology. The goalpost moving is annoying enough, we don’t need to add additional bullshit into the mix.
Even at 625 mill, they don't get ALL the money after that, still just half, and even less from foreign box office like China. And what used to be the big windfall was DVD sales and those are absolutely dogshit these days.
I'm not saying GOTG3 LOST Marvel money, but these kind of massive franchise tentpole films are supposed to RAKE IT IN to cover all the new IP and riskier stuff that may bomb. Thats the "underperforming" being referred to.
By your math, GOTG1 170x2.5=425mill 770-425=345 mill profit
GOTG2 200x2.5= 500mill 869-500= 369 mill profit
GOTG 3 250x2.5= 625 845-625= 220 mill
See how that works? GOTG "underperformed" compared to the arc established by GOTG1 and 2.
ManaByte
Gold Member
The MCU just crossed $30 billion total at the box office this last weekend. You're going to have to move the goalposts out past Pluto at this point.
Doom85
Member
If a film underperformed, that means it failed to make any profit, but didn’t lose enough money to constitute a bomb. If the other poster meant something else, they should have clarified that. Saying “underperformed” with no context is easily refuted.
And really, the only issue here was Guardians 3‘s budget was higher. The actual audience turnout difference was minor.
Also, why do you get to definitively say, “we can just ignore home video sales because they’re likely low” but also ”eh, streaming, who knows? Let’s ignore that”. That feels like you’re trying to make every category work in your favor even if you have little to no data to go on.
Those films DEFINITELY benefitted from anticipation of the characters featuring in future team-up films. Captain Marvel and Ant-man as well. You can see the drop off of BO for their respective sequels (GOTG excepted I think and Dr. Strange2 did pretty well) that a big chunk of the audience was just there for the Avengers tie-ins, not the IP directly.
You can see here the 3 GOTG flicks tracked quite closely to each other but GOTG2 had a nice bump. Of course the increased budgets means they made LESS MONEY each film.
Guardians of the Galaxy Franchise Box Office History - The Numbers
Guardians of the Galaxy franchise box office earnings
That’s purely a theory on your part on the primary reason why the films did well. Regardless, it has nothing to do with what I was arguing with with the other person, who acted like only three actors carried every movie’s performance even if they weren’t in some of them which is just ridiculous. Nobody knew for sure in 2014 that these seemingly randos in space were going to have much to do with the Avengers, as Thanos’ scene was not in any trailer to my knowledge, and obviously anything we knew about Age of Ultron at that point would give no reason to believe they would be in it because, well, they ultimately were not in Age of Ultron.
I’m sorry, I refuse to believe that instead of most people seeing the GOTG 1 trailer and going, “this looks fun!” they instead were, “oh, I have to see this because someday Steve Rogers might talk to that raccoon!” This is the issue when nerds and such don’t try to adapt to the general public’s mindset. They don’t know the comics. They’re not following con announcements and such until the trailer/previews start dropping and YouTube and such make sure everyone sees them. Carl from Accounting and Jennifer from HR whose nerd-dom doesn’t extend beyond, “I saw some superhero/fantasy/sci-fi films but like hell I’m reading that shit” were definitely not thinking, “I’m seeing this space movie because the talking tree is totally going to team up with Thor at some point,” back in 2014. They knew that Avengers had the three dudes with their own movies, the big Hulk guy, and two agents on the team and they fought together and it was cool. That’s it. They were not theorizing about the future of the movies like us nerds. Guardians 1 did well primarily because it was a solid movie and was marketed well.
Also, Ant-man 2 did roughly 100 million more than 1, and 3 only made 40 million less than 1 did. In terms of audience numbers, Ant-man was never getting as big a crowd as any of the others, so even 3 isn’t really indicative that the audience for that particular series really dropped that much.
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I don't think there is a firm definition of "underperformed" but certainly a companies stock price rises based on an assumption of profits and when those goals aren't met, it "underperforms". The arc of the guardians films should have had GOTG3 hitting a billion, and the increased budget was factoring that increased revenue projection.
Sequels historically have LESS budget than the first film because they usually DON'T earn as much, though the past few decades of franchise films makes this axiom a little harder to apply. But an extra 50 mill spend either reflects production problems or confidence in more box office and that didn't happen. You can't point to any of these marvel films and say that an elaborate CGI action scene is ESSENTIAL, so there is definitely budget that COULD be cut. This is what screws the DC films IMHO, they are sooooooooo over produced. I guess that spectacle helps sell them overseas but I think most of them could shave off 50% of the CGI video game battles in favor of 3-4 good character moments or a few real people engaging in some basic fights or stunts.
ManaByte
Gold Member
Had James Gunn not been fired and had COVID not happened and had Guardians 3 released in its original May 2020 release date, it would've probably done $1.3 billion easily.
Not May 2020, that would have been smack in the middle of covid lockdown.
ManaByte
Gold Member
Good job not reading my post.
ForAcademicPurposes
Member
I mean, everyone was ok with them until they started churning out shit. Sure, I'd semi-agree to that.
I read it, but thats some serious "coulda woulda" to speculate on timing like that. GOTG3 in may 2020 may have been still riding the wave of endgame and no way home or it may have been the first hit of the fatigue that got Black Window, Eternals, and Shang-Chi. Or did the several year delay help the film, whet appetites, etc? Never know.
ManaByte
Gold Member
May 2020 was Black Widow's release date after Gunn got fired in July of 2019. But you know, something happened that caused it to be delayed more than a year. I can't seem to remember what caused that.
ChuckeRearmed
Member
The success of Phase 1 elevated all other Marvel IPs.
It is exactly the same scenario as everywhere - first phase established the fact that Marvel's movies is something that you should go and watch in theaters.
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All we can do is look at the order of films released and some projected dates. After S:FFH there is a BIG financial drop off in MCU film BO until S:NWH, then a slower drop till the rock bottom of The Marvels. But Thor BO dropped, Ant-man dropped, Black Panther dropped. Only Spider-man and Dr. Strange INCREASED BO after Endgame. I think GOTG3, having that bit of a delay, BENEFITTED from it, folks WANTED a "traditional MCU film" after the 'woke shit' of the past few years. Had it dropped in May 2020 with no covid I don't think it would have done any better or maybe even done a bit worse like the Thor, Ant-man, Cpt Marvel and BP sequels did. Only Strange is an exception to the lower post-endgame trend and Spidey isn't really part of this discussion.
What does he mean by box office multiplier? total BO divided by opening weekend? GOTG was only slight higher than most marvel films around him. GOTG is like 8x, but Thor, Capt:TWS, and Avengers are all in the 7s, I didn't even run them all. Good on GOTG for probably bringing in more $$$ than Thor and Cap, but peanuts compared to Avengers and IM3. Plus his "multiplier" rank lasts only a year before it is SMASHED by....Ant-man....AND again by Ant-man2! Rarified air, that metric
