Disney has revealed that its upcoming Avengers: Doomsday movie has already cost more than double the sum it spent on 2023’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania when it was at a similar stage of production.
For most movies this feat would be far from a triumph but it is a different story for Doomsday as as it shows that Disney is throwing its weight behind it. Just over a year ago its Marvel Studios division was staring into an abyss. The studio that once could do no wrong had released a string of box office bombs which set up the next phase of its inter-connected cinematic universe of superhero movies. It raised the question of whether audiences were finally tiring of the highest-grossing film franchise in history. In true superhero style, help came from the most unexpected of places.
Last year couldn’t have got off to much of a worse start for Marvel. Not only was it coming off the back of a string of critical failures but it was also grappling with cost cuts as Disney was slashing $7.5 billion of spending following mounting losses in its streaming division. The red ink had been driven by commissioning costly exclusive content and Disney’s chief executive Bob Iger singled Marvel out as being a particular problem.
In an interview with CNBC he pointed out that prior to the launch of the Disney+ streaming platform in late 2019, Marvel “had not been in the television business at any significant level, and not only did they increase their movie output, but they ended up making a number of TV series.” Crucially, he added that “frankly, it diluted focus and attention.”
Iger added that as a result of this, Disney would “pull back not just to focus, but also as part of our cost containment initiative. Spending less on what we make, and making less.” Cutting cost wasn’t the only reason for this.
Marvel’s bloated content pipeline had fueled reports that its visual effects (VFX) teams were overworked with some observers pointing to a decline in the quality of their output as evidence for this. Most embarrassingly, some critics compared the digital appearance of the secondary antagonist in 2023’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania to a character from 2003 children’s movie Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over.
When Quantumania was released in February 2023 it grossed $476.1 million in theaters according to Box Office Mojo giving Disney around $238.05 million based on the typical 50% share to studios. As this report revealed, filings from Disney show that it spent a net $330.1 million on making the movie leaving it with an estimated $92.05 million loss at the box office.
Just one month after Quantumania debuted, Marvel fired Victoria Alonso, its president of physical and post-production, VFX and animation production. She had been with the studio since 2006 and some saw her as a scapegoat for its struggles, especially given the fierce criticism of Quantumania’s VFX.
However, Alonso was reportedly actually fired for promoting the historical drama she produced, Argentina, 1985. The exact circumstances of her departure may never be known as she reached a multi-million Dollar settlement with Marvel a month after she left. It didn’t quell the discontent amongst her former staff who voted a few months later to unionize with the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees for the first time.
No sooner was Alonso out of the picture than a far bigger threat emerged and Marvel had to use every trick in its spell book to take it on. The scene was set for it several years earlier.
In 2021 few members of Marvel’s management had heard of Grace Jabbari. The British dancer was a movement coach on the set of Quantumania and began a relationship with American actor Jonathan Majors, who played the movie’s main antagonist, a time-traveling conqueror called Kang. An experienced theater actor, Majors rose to prominence through starring in Joe Talbot’s critically acclaimed independent feature film The Last Black Man in San Francisco in 2019.
The following year Marvel announced that he had been cast as Kang, who was being positioned as the big bad of its next series of films and streaming shows. In 2021 Majors made his debut in the finale of the Disney+ series Loki, which introduced the concept of the multiverse – parallel universes populated by different variants of iconic Marvel superheroes.
Thanks to Kang’s time-traveling powers he can hop between these universes and can even control the events in them making him a formidable force. It explains why five Marvel movies and one of its streaming shows have prominently featured variants of the heroes or been based on the theme of time travel since Majors made his debut as Kang. It was building up to a climactic clash in two Avengers superhero team-up movies which will be released in May 2026 and May 2027. They are going ahead but Majors won’t be in them.
By the end of March 2023 Jabbari’s name was well-known to Marvel’s management after she called the police claiming that Majors attacked her during an argument. He was arrested on charges of assault and harassment calling his future with Marvel into question and putting its meticulously-planned pipeline of productions in doubt.
Marvel continued to back the star regardless and even launched a second series of Loki featuring him as the main antagonist. It was carefully timed to air in fall 2023 and finished just ahead of his trial. Although the show was well-received, it still didn’t ignite as much interest from fans as previous phases of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) had enjoyed, especially 2019’s Avengers: Endgame which became the second highest-grossing movie in history with takings of $2.8 billion.
A few weeks after the finale of Loki’s second season, it became clear that Marvel would have to rethink its plans. The turning point came in December 2023 when Majors was found guilty of assaulting Jabbari causing Marvel to drop him on the same day.
Last year began against this bleak backdrop but, as the saying goes, in the midst of every crisis lies great opportunity. Marvel made the most of it.
Following Iger’s cost cuts, the studio only had one movie on its calendar in 2024 though it was a good one. Marvel’s success in theaters last year depended entirely on the hotly-anticipated Deadpool & Wolverine which was packed full of variants of heroes and villains. It ended up with takings of $1.3 billion making it the most successful R-rated movie of all time and the second highest-grossing film of 2024.
As the multiverse was at the heart of this blockbuster, Marvel had little choice but to double down on its decision to make it the dominant theme of its upcoming Avengers movies despite the departure of the actor who tied the threads together. Instead of seeing this as a risk, Marvel took the opportunity to reset the dial and it couldn’t have come at a better time.
Although Deadpool & Wolverine was a success, the previous MCU movie, The Marvels, suffered the ignominy of being the lowest-grossing picture in the franchise with takings of just $206.1 million. It was stark evidence of the level of public apathy to the once-bulletproof interconnected film franchise and was especially worrying for the studio as The Marvels featured characters from the fan-favorite X-Men team.
Its lackluster performance demonstrated that Marvel could no longer rely on fans feeling that they had to watch each entry in the series to follow the story. Instead, the studio wanted to give fans another reason to turn up to the theater and it had to think outside the box to do it.
In late July last year Marvel stunned the crowd at San Diego’s annual Comic-Con when it announced that the upcoming Avengers films would be directed by Joe and Anthony Russo who helmed Endgame as well as many more of Marvel’s most popular movies.
Then came the revelation that Kang’s name was no longer in the title of either of the upcoming movies as the first in the series would be called Avengers: Doomsday, signalling that its antagonist would instead be Doctor Doom. One of Marvel’s most iconic villains, Doom also has control of time travel in the comics enabling Marvel to maintain the storyline it has carefully crafted on screen since the pandemic. However, even that wasn’t enough. Marvel needed an actor who packs a punch to play Doom as it would draw a line under the movies and shows starring Majors. It got what it wanted.
To thunderous applause, Robert Downey Jr was unveiled as the face behind Doom’s mask. It reunites the Oscar winner with the studio where he previously played the heroic armored Avenger Iron Man. Bringing him back didn’t come cheap with Variety claiming that Marvel will pay the Russos $80 million to direct Doomsday and its sequel Avengers: Secret Wars whilst Downey Jr is expected to get “significantly more”. Its report added that the Russos’ deal doesn’t include back-end compensation, but does contain performance escalators which kick in at the $750 million and $1 billion thresholds. That’s just the start.
As this report revealed, according to filings from Disney, the cost of making Endgame and its prequel Avengers: Infinity War came to $1.3 billion and the two upcoming follow ups are expected to top that.
The Secret Wars storyline was first introduced to Marvel comics in the 1980s and featured almost all of its leading characters. The big screen version is set to follow suit with more than 60 of them expected to appear in it according to Deadline. It added that the colossal cast could include Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hiddleston, Simu Liu and Karen Gillan. Testimony to this, recently-leaked concept art of the movies showed several of these stars in medieval, contemporary and futuristic settings suggesting that the time travelling theme will still be core to the films.
Like Infinity War and Endgame, the upcoming movies are expected to be filmed back-to-back with principal photography due to start at the end of this month. Early insight into the cost comes from recently-filed documents which reveal that one month before the Russos and Downey Jr had been announced, Disney had already spent a staggering $8 million (£6.3 million) on pre-production.
Disney didn’t respond to an opportunity to comment for this report and it doesn’t need to as this data comes directly from its own filings. The cost of making movies is usually a closely-guarded secret but there is good reason why Doomsday and Secret Wars are exceptions.
With a roster of actors which reads like a roll call for the Oscars, Marvel had to go to great lengths to prevent production costs from ballooning. Instead of filming the movies in the United States, where many of the cast are based, the movies will instead be shot at the historic Pinewood Studios in the United Kingdom where studios get a cash reimbursement of up to 25.5% of the money they spend in the country.
To qualify for the reimbursement, at least 10% of the production costs need to relate to activities in the U.K. In order to prove to the government how much money they spend in the U.K., studios set up a separate Film Production Company (FPC) there for each movie they make. Under U.K. law, the FPC has to file financial statements which reveal everything from the headcount and salaries to the total costs. It takes a bit of detective work to get the information.
The companies usually have code names so they don’t raise attention with fans when filing permits to film on location. Tallying the names of each FPC with the productions they are responsible for requires deep industry knowledge which my colleague and I have built up over nearly 15 years. We are the only reporters worldwide who specialize in covering the financial statements of U.K. FPCs for national media and we have reported on them for more than 10 leading titles including The Times of London, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent and the London Evening Standard.
The financial statements have a public interest in the U.K. media as the reimbursement to the studios comes from taxpayers’ money. Outside the U.K. the interest is in the bigger picture matter of the production costs. The financial statements are obliged to show the complete costs for each production in order to get the reimbursement. Its terms state that “there can only be one FPC in relation to a film” so studios can’t hide costs in other companies.
The Disney subsidiary behind Doomsday is called For All Time Productions UK in a nod to the movie’s setting in multiple eras. As with all U.K. companies, its financial statements are released in stages long after the period they relate to. This starts during pre-production and continues long after the premiere to give the production team time to ensure that all the bills are paid.
It explains why the recent filings cover the period of almost 15 months to June 30, 2024 during which time the movie didn’t even have any employees on its books.
The scale of the spending can only be seen when comparing it to other productions which is no mean feat as their financial statements are all compiled at different times. One of the closest comparisons is Quantumania as the first filings for its production company were dated September 30, 2020 which was ten months before shooting began, compared to nine for Doomsday.
Despite being at a similar stage in the production pipeline, Marvel had spent just $2.5 million (£2 million) on Quantumania by that time which is a whopping three times less than it had shelled out on Doomsday. The FPC behind Quantumania was incorporated ten months before the date of its financial statements compared to 15 months For All Time Productions which may partly account for its increased costs. However even taking the average monthly spending, Doomsday comes out on top with costs of $531,919 which are double the $251,165 for Quantumania.
Of course, it is possible that Quantumania’s spending could have increased beyond that of Doomsday just days after its financial statements were filed though there would be no way of knowing this as the filings for the FPC cover much longer periods of time.
The second set of filings for Quantumania’s FPC covered the 15 months to the end of December 2021 which was just after filming had finished. By that time, total spending on the movie had surged to $211 million and no doubt Doomsday’s next set of filings will show a sharp increase in its costs. However, they will only reflect part of principal photography as the next filings will cover the period to June 30, 2025 when filming for Doomsday will still be underway with Secret Wars to follow after that. The schedule came to light recently when Anthony Russo told Collider that shooting would take “six months for each of them.”
Having a big budget does not guarantee that they will be a success. Perhaps the biggest problem is the lack of build up for Doctor Doom which is due to Marvel spending the past four years positioning Kang as an Avengers-level threat. Thanos, the team’s previous adversary, had appeared in four films before the big battle with him in Endgame whereas Doctor Doom has yet to be mentioned. He is expected to make his debut in July’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps but no other Marvel movies are scheduled between then and Doomsday.
It’s a particular concern given that Downey Jr is so closely associated with Iron Man and his alter ego Tony Stark. So much so indeed that when Downey Jr makes public appearances it’s sometimes tough to tell whether or not he is in character. His change of role has even confused his colleagues. On reading Downey Jr’s Instagram post about becoming a villain, his former Marvel co-star Gwyneth Paltrow posted a reply saying “I don’t get it, are you a baddie now?”
Nevertheless, ever the consummate actor, Downey Jr has immersed himself in his new role. In a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight, Joe Russo revealed that Downey Jr is “writing backstory, costume ideas…We were just on the phone with him this morning before we got here talking about it. He just loves really rich three-dimensional characters. He sees a real opportunity here with the character.”
Speaking on the Jake’s Takes podcast, Russo added that “interestingly enough, Downey decided to go back before we decided to go back…I had dinner with Downey about a year before we agreed to do the movie where he was trying to convince us of why we should do [it]. We just didn’t have a story to tell or a way in yet and then it hit us.”
The directors reportedly had a brainwave of how to tie the upcoming movies to their predecessors and if it proves to be a success they will be hailed as the saviors of the MCU. In fact, it would actually be thanks to Grace Jabbari because if she hadn’t called the police then Majors wouldn’t have been charged and Marvel wouldn’t have dropped him. It would have been stuck with a storyline which hadn’t captured the interest of fans and lacked the publicity boost that Downey Jr gave the series. Time will tell whether he still has enough punching power to bring it back to its former glory.
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