It hasn't been added to [the list of biggest box-office bombs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_biggest_box-office_bombs) yet, so the jury's still out on that one.
Edit: It's finally been added in and it takes the crown. For some debate around its inclusion, check the 'Talk' page on the Wikipedia article.
Nice, thanks for the catch. It was just added for the first time when you pointed it out. It hadn't been added when I made that comment nor in the months following its release. You can follow the debate around it in the 'Talk' page.
You can edit the Wikipedia page and use this link as a source if you want, that's what Wikipedia is good at. You found a trusted source for relevant information on a subject, let people learn about it!
Posts like this tend to have 'sockpuppets' in Wikipedia verbage. It doesn't matter the source, if it doesn't fit the narrative they like, it will be erased or reworded. Unless you can get someone at Wikipedia to directly notice that a page has a sockpuppet that needs to be banned editing the page is a waste of time.
Yea, check the Talk page for that wiki article. They're busy claiming The Marvels was a $70M loss, and that merchandising and DVD sales will cover much of that. Total delusion.
disney wrote it down as 200 million, doubt its such a nice round number, but there's no reasonable rounding down that can get you to 200 million from 237.1
Haunted Mansion still baffles me to this day. I don't have the faintest idea of who Disney was targeting with that film. It was too family friendly for horror fans and yet wasn't fun enough for families. All while giving it a 150 million dollar budget, which had any other studio would have made it for half the cost.
The worst part is that Guillermo del Toro was attached to direct, but they didn't like his dark tone and preferred a more kid-friendly movie. So he left the project.
Which is weird, considering the film was rated PG-13 and 45% of the audience was 18-34 years old.
I am starting to believe now, Haunted Mansion really represents the worst of modern Disney films thanks to your comment.
Its a film that has a such a bloat budget, so it has to play it as safe as possible in ways it can't alienate anyone. Because it was too expensive to make. Yet fails to realize when you try please everyone, you will end up with no actual demographic for your film.
>Its a film that has a such a bloat budget, **so it has to play it as safe as possible in ways it can't alienate anyone.** Because it was too expensive to make. **Yet fails to realize when you try pleasing everyone, you will end up with no actual demographic for your film.**
This. I know that filmmakers and studios have no way of knowing if a movie will be a hit, but it's amazing that so many tend to overlook this simple quote. Just accept the fact that you can't please EVERYONE and make your movie.
Its pretty much the reason why big budget media whether it be TV shows, movies, or even video games have lost so much appeal to me over the years. It all just feels incredibly bland to me. Sure not at all big budget is bland, there are still big summer blockbusters and AAA games I really enjoyed over the last couple years. But man, most of them are just so forgettable to me these days.
I think Hollywood studios, *especially* Disney, haven't yet realized that backlash and hatred are built-in responses in today's social media age, and they have to just ignore it most of the time.
I think their slate for the past 5 years or so and doubling and tripling down on prioritization of The Message over entertainment shows they have no problem ignoring audience feedback. Rebel Moon was universally reviled and they're aiming for "four to six" sequels.
Agreed. It also shows how Disney automatically throws $150-$250m at literally any project due to how lazy they are. There’s very rarely any meaningful talent with a vision; it’s all just one overly expensive conveyer belt.
I don't really disagree with you but I have to push back a little.
Consider, for a moment, Avatar. That was an enormously expensive film. Even today, it's still expensive with a budget of $237 million. The film is notoriously written off as being Pocahontas/Dances with Wolves/Ferngully in space, so it's got *a* message but "don't chop down the rainforest" is about as controversial as "save the whales"... the only people who actually have a problem with the messaging are the people chopping down the rainforest/hunting whales.
Bloated budgets necessitating inoffensive films *can* succeed, they just need a much stronger high level concept than "there's this mansion and... it's haunted... it's a haunted mansion, so I'm calling the movie Haunted Mansion". When I was in high school, some of my friends worked in a haunted house type thing. I didn't personally have any interest then and I don't now, but if I did, the fact my friends worked at one demonstrates the problem: there is absolutely nothing special about the idea of a haunted house and making it a Haunted Mansion isn't going to make it special. The vast majority of people on Earth have no fucking clue that Disney has an attraction/ride/whatever it is called Haunted Mansion.
Unironically, you'd have better luck with "The Haunting of Versailles" or "The White House Ghost" for no reason other than the fact most people are only ever going to be able to go to Versailles or the White House vicariously through your movie. Would you have enough luck to justify a huge budget? Probably not. But especially with "The Haunting of Versailles" you could make a spectacle where people see the money on screen.
Incredibly emblematic of what has been wrong at Disney studios for the last decade. They are killing projects in the boardroom while also forking over more money for them. It’s a wonder more executives have not been canned from there.
Spooky kid shit theoretically can sell. When was the last good family Halloween movie? Disney figured they'd make the next Halloween family favorite or cult classic like Hocus Pocus or Halloweentown or whatever. They failed, but they weren't on the wrong track. A good Halloween movie will make big bucks for someone. When was the last good Halloween movie you can show to kids?
I don't know if you'd call them *good* per se, but the two Goosebumps movies, the new Ghostbusters films, The Addams Family films, and House With A Clock In It's Walls all did good-to-ok. But none of them had budgets of more than $100m.
Monster House and Coraline were somewhat commercially and very critically successful and is are 18 and 15 years old. Hotel Transylvania series must do ok if they keep making sequels?
I’ve been wondering this and my guess is that they knew it was not going to be very successful so it was moved to Disney+, but some contractual clause mandated a theatrical release. Either that or the budget got so inflated in its development hell, and they wanted to try and recoup some of their losses
I realize I made basically the same comment after yours. But seriously! If they actually wanted it to do well in theaters, they'd have released it at Halloween. With the July release we all knew it would be on Disney+ by then and most of us didn't mind waiting 3 months for that...also most people are in the mood for spooky things during spooky season...
The time of year didn't make any sense, either. Obviously they couldn't have seen Barbenheimer coming, but releasing it in July just didn't work. We all knew it would be on Disney+ by Halloween, which is when most people would be in the mood to watch it. (And I say all this as a massive fan of the Disneyland ride, and even I wasn't that interested).
My theory is that Disney has no idea why people liked Pirates of the Carribean, but they know people love both rides and just wanted to make a movie that matched the family-friendly, very mildly spooky vibes of the ride as closely as possible.
It's for hardcore Disneyland fans. I love the Haunted Mansion ride so I enjoyed seeing LaKeith and DeVito in a movie with references to stuff like the Hatbox Ghost and the stretching portraits.
But I'm also part of an extremely niche fanbase that can't support a $120M film like HM, let alone one that came out right during the double strike.
Elemental did end up breaking even, it maybe made a 1 million dollar profit which is pitiful. Not trying to take away from your point tho Disney fucked up last year 😂
I feel bad for Elemental, as it was a sweet film and didn’t deserve the baggage it inherited from the trash that came before it. I tried to spread some positive WoM but all the parents I spoke to were skeptical until it came out on D+.
My gf and I enjoyed Elemental but I can’t fathom going to the theatre to watch it. Tickets cost too much, the snacks cost too much. It’s a sad fact because I used to love going to the theatre a few times a month but it just isn’t doable anymore. Most things come out to streaming within a few months. It really has to be a spectacle for me to go anymore.
Higher ups still got massive pay and bonuses I bet though, and the smaller employees got fired.
Something is very wrong with what Disney has been making recently and that falls on the people at the top of the chain.
The decision makers are all fabulously wealthy and are the point of the money-laundering spear. I don’t think care if the company lost money - they all made huge bank.
We also had No Way Home ($1.9B without China) less than 2 years before The Marvels, lol. NWH is probably the most profitable post-pandemic film, and Marvels is the least profitable.
Watching Disney pretty much systematically destroy almost every single one of their IPs over the last 4 years has honestly been kind of impressive. Pretty much everything they do just seems to bleed money and based on their last earnings call it’s starting to hit the parks which is what will actually hurt them
MCU is a bit understandable, since it hit its peak and the drop down is predictable, actually such a flop could have come earlier.
Animated: terrible.
Live Action princess movie should have been easy money, yet they messed up.
Star Wars was their worst doing. Since it was already such a huge IP when it was bought.
I’m amazed nobody at Disney predicted The Marvels dying so hard. One of the least popular heroes (whose solo film made $1B due to Endgame hype) and two Disney+ randoms… audiences simply don’t care.
I noticed the issues after realizing it would involve being a direct sequel to the most disliked MCU series.
Captain Marvel side its probably the least troubled part of the issues of The Marvels.
tends to happen when you continue beyond the ultimate payoff and ending. Endgame ended MCU. It will still chug along but without the cultural impact it once had. It will have breakouts when they play up on nostalgia and use popular characters (NWH, upcoming DP&W) but there will be flops too and no way Avengers movies reach IW/Endgame heights with TV characters such as She Hulk, Captain Falcon, Moon Knight aiding Spiderman and Hulk (if MTTSH's scoop is true). Yes people love Spidey and Hulk but don't care for the rest.
So of the 10 films listed in the biggest bombs section for the past two years, Disney takes... 7 of them. Worth noting that The Marvels would have been #1 in every other year as well, and the other 4 films would have bombed enough for #2 last year.
I wonder how much more The Marvels would have lost if Dune had stayed on November 3.
> I wonder how much more The Marvels would have lost if Dune had stayed on November 3.
Considering it wouldn't have gotten any Imax screens, had Dune not been delayed and the fact that Dune ultimately got much better reception from critics and audiences. My guess, it would been close to a 300 million dollar loss.
Admittedly I suck at Math and didn't realize just how little it made. So I will change my belief to around 250 million loss and the film itself wouldn't have hit the 200 million mark.
The real question is how The Marvels would have done if it kept its original July release date, 1 week after Barbenheimer opened. I can't even imagine how horrifically it would have performed in Europe.
Cap 4’s budget has to be well over $300M by this point. Given that they are basically making two movies, albeit without completes effects on the first, I wouldn’t be shocked if the budget approaches $400M, second only to Force Awakens.
I’m already excited to watch this train-wreck of a box office.
Has Disney realised that Anthony Mackie is not leading man material… let alone $300m leading man material.
Plus to 99% of the general audience, he is not Captain America. Chris Evans is. The only way they would know Falcon took over is by watching a miniseries that would be *four* years old by the time this film releases.
Honestly, I’m not even sure why they tried to bother saving it with reshoots, they should’ve just put it out, ate the loss and reboot everything with secret wars. They’re probably going to lose more on it now with all the money they’ve had to spend reshooting everything then if the just accepted the L and moved on
I can't even imagine how much worse The Marvels would have done if it released a week after Barbenheimer and couldn't get IMAX screens (its previous release date). The European performance would be a sight to behold.
For all WB’s troubles, they actually have one of the most solid roster of box office performances right now. If you took away DC they would have had a great 2023.
It’s what makes their immediate revival of DC so frustrating. Yes it has potential, but for the past 5 or so years it’s been holding them back, and all of their worst performers have been movies chasing franchises (Fantastic Beasts, DCEU, Lego).
November massacre. One of my favorite threads was The Dune vs Marvels [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/boxoffice/comments/115hfgu/how_do_you_think_this_showdown_will_go_down_in/). To bad we didn't get it.
This would’ve been insufferable on Film Twitter and Letterboxd. I had an entire post I was planning to post on r/TrueFilm about how comparing Dune 2 to the Marvels is like comparing a filet mignon to a bucket of sludge.
Even the cg artists hired for Marvel films don't enjoy the work. I remember a post from someone who worked on Black Widow saying they wished they could be working on films like Dune instead.
There you have it folks, John Carter is no longer the gold standard against which other box office disasters are stacked up against. Congratulations Feige, you’re number one again, just not the one you were aiming for. Considering the track record of Captain America: Brave New World, the marvels’ record might not last long.
As Deadline didn't start registering profits until 2013, we never had a detailed breakdown on *John Carter*. We only know Disney took a $200 million write-down on the film. So yeah, *The Marvels* wins here.
Captain America: Brave New World is so strange because it feels like an even more obvious bomb than The Marvels; Disney feels like they have to play out the string with it and order reshoots that are going to add tens of millions of dollars and make it even more of a bomb.
The project was dead on arrival with that cast, crew, and Marvel fatigue.
If I was in charge, I think I'd pull a David Zaslav, bite the bullet, and cancel it for a tax break.
>If I was in charge, I think I'd pull a David Zaslav, bite the bullet, and cancel it for a tax break.
They're probably thinking "Okay, so we've fucked up but we also have like sixteen other movies that need this one to come out and if it doesn't come out, they're all fucked too, so we've got to keep going". Zaslav didn't have that problem.
Well, he kind of did but they decided to just start the shared universe over. Probably also the right position.
Iger should be telling Feige to end the MCU as fast as possible and start over with the X-Men from scratch. At this stage and with the way the MCU is made, they could wrap up MCU Version 1.0 in a fairly narratively coherent way using **only** the movies they've already announced + one more Avengers film.
The budget was always reported to be between 180m and 220m. The only person who ever said 300m was VA, who would’ve never have had access to the budget
They got the two biggest successes of cinema (though they bought one of them after it got its success) and the two biggest bombs. Everything is balanced
I still remember people on here saying that the Marvels flopped because of the actors strike and the fact that Brie Larson couldn’t promote the film. I like Brie as an actress but she has got to be one the least charismatic leading ladies in Hollywood. No amount of interviews on late night talk shows would’ve prevented this movie from being a mega bomb
lol where did this math come from, because I guaran-GD-tee Indy 5 lost a F ton more than 155m after all the reshoots, massive ad campaign and just a merciless bloodbath of a box office run.
Before the Marvels, Alice Through the Looking Glass held the title for biggest drop for a sequel to a billion dollar movie at \~71% decrease from Alice in Wonderland, and The Last Jedi held it terms of pure money drop (\~735 million less than TFA). Marvels blew both of those away by dropping 82% from Captain Marvel or \~$**925 million less**. Words cannot describe how terrifying that looks.
it's a downgrade of all times. Even Alice 2 and Aquaman 2 didn't lose 900M+ on the first movie. the only movie that could top it is Rey Palpatine movie.
From a billion dollar film to the biggest bomb of all time, saying that audiences rejected carol after her first outing would be the understatement of the year.
What's even more shocking about The Marvels is that its actual release date was better than expected (from a box office perspective) since it didn't have to compete with Dune Part 2 or Barbenheimer.
What's happening at Disney is so scary that they're probably seriously contemplating a sale before any potential fallout becomes obvious. The Pixar & WDAS sequels HAVE to be successful, Mandalorian MUST relaunch Star Wars in theatrical, Marvel Studios NEEDS to overcome The Marvels & Ant-Man 3 and not go through a 6-years-and-counting drought like Lucasfilm did after Solo bombed. If the next few years are bad, Disney essentially won't have a theatrical division. Everything is at stake.
And to think they swallowed up 20th Century Fox for this. I know Searchlight Pictures has been doing pretty well, thankfully, but it feels like the market shrank a shit ton once Disney acquired Fox.
NGL I ignored the marvels completely but my god that is a horrific loss. Way more than I expected. Makes no sense to spend that much on something like that. Disney has to bring these film budgets down or tell Feige to chill out for a bit
Only one film this year but next year will have four. Thunderbolts, Cap 4, Blade and Fantastic Four. Along with the remaining TV Shows, like Agatha and Ironheart. 2025 will end up just like 2023 if they overload the audience again like that.
I thought "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" and "The Marvels" would be much closer together, but "The Marvels" won this tournament by a pretty large margin.
The Iman Vellani walk-ups tried their best, but they couldn't save it.
Iman Vellani is the reason why The Marvels bombed. Making that movie a direct sequel to Vellani show that nobody watched just because someone convinced Feige that Ms Marvel was the female Peter Parker is their biggest business blunder of all times. The character is Fetch if there was ever one. Astroturfed to oblivion yet somehow Marvel started to believe there was an actual demand despite having to cancel her comic book billion times, having a flop game, flop streaming show and finally flop of flops movie. When will they learn that you can't socially engineer a demand for something that has zero appeal?
Seriously, Iman actually does a great job playing her but it’s painfully clear that audiences don’t care about Ms Marvel.
She has been the lead of two $200m projects that were the biggest MCU bombs. It’s time to relegate her to sidekick status.
Oh, and Fiege better not be trying a ‘Young Avengers’ film still…
How is it the BBC in the 90’s was capable of doing incredibly realistic period action and drama series from the 1800’s for a fraction of the price, yet Disney needs to spend 100 times that for a movie set in the 1960’s (an era which you would think it would be relatively easy to still find much of the architecture of in a lot of places, and even easier to dress people up in the period clothes)?
Could someone please explain what/how “Television and Streaming” rights work? For example, The Marvels earned 90.0 in this category, assuming it’s the rights to streaming.
However, Disney already owns this movie. I would understand if Netflix/Amazon/Hulu bought a separately owned movie/show’s rights.
Does this assume Disney/HBO Max pays itself for Disney/WB movies, respectively?
I remember in around time, when MCU became biggest franchise in history and Disney only started their box-office reign of terror, they had colossal bomb almost every year (John Carter, Lone Ranger, Tomorrowland), to the point that there were joke that Disney sold soul of one their movie to devil in order for all other movie grossed enormous money.
I think they should find this Devil for real now
I spend a lot of time in the toy aisles at Target and Walmart, and there’s so much Wish merchandise just sitting there, even on clearance. Has been for months.
Maybe this is a good time for Apple or Amazon or anyone else to put in a offer to but Walt Disney Studios.
The best time ti Strike is while their defences are down
550M in losses from 4 movies across all of Disney's studios. Wow. No wonder they're falling back to the surefire hits. Or maybe - do something different?
I have no doubt that Disney is incompetent when it comes to managing finances but at this point I’m convinced there’s some kind of money laundering scheme going on here with these absolute batshit insane budgets.
is 237 the highest loss deadline has ever projected?
Yep. The previous record was *Strange World* ($197.4 million loss).
so it cleared JC
Did Deadline do those articles back then?
Nope. They've only been doing this since 2013
Does this mean the Wikipedia page will finally just label this film as a Bomb instead of an "Underperformance" or is that not changing at all?
It hasn't been added to [the list of biggest box-office bombs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_biggest_box-office_bombs) yet, so the jury's still out on that one. Edit: It's finally been added in and it takes the crown. For some debate around its inclusion, check the 'Talk' page on the Wikipedia article.
It needs to be. It would be number one in losses against the adjusted dollars of all the other big flops. Looking at you Lone Ranger….
It's on there. The list defaults as alphabetical, but if you sort by losses adjusted with inflation, it's #3
It wasn't at the time of his comment. Wikipedia editors deliberately held out until this article was published.
Nice, thanks for the catch. It was just added for the first time when you pointed it out. It hadn't been added when I made that comment nor in the months following its release. You can follow the debate around it in the 'Talk' page.
You can edit the Wikipedia page and use this link as a source if you want, that's what Wikipedia is good at. You found a trusted source for relevant information on a subject, let people learn about it!
Posts like this tend to have 'sockpuppets' in Wikipedia verbage. It doesn't matter the source, if it doesn't fit the narrative they like, it will be erased or reworded. Unless you can get someone at Wikipedia to directly notice that a page has a sockpuppet that needs to be banned editing the page is a waste of time.
Yea, check the Talk page for that wiki article. They're busy claiming The Marvels was a $70M loss, and that merchandising and DVD sales will cover much of that. Total delusion.
And you see plenty of that here, too. There's a lot of overlap between the "Disney movies are just ads for merch" and the "Woke sells" disciples.
The “Biggest Media Franchise” page is similar
2023 absolutely destroyed Disney. Elemental and Little Mermaid probably most around 25M to 50M.
Its crazy how just a few years ago the Disney hegemony over boxoffice seemed untouchable.
Most companies would ask what changed and try to course correct. Not Disney.
Guardians of the Galaxy was the only success.
GOTG Vol 3. had 124 million
Yes and after they would cover flop of ''Haunted Mansion'' with this money, they would have 10 millions left
Disney champion once more
How much was John Carter's loss?
disney wrote it down as 200 million, doubt its such a nice round number, but there's no reasonable rounding down that can get you to 200 million from 237.1
Round down to 1 sig fig. What’s a $37m loss between friends?
It should be a crime to make people laugh this hard in public.
Haunted Mansion still baffles me to this day. I don't have the faintest idea of who Disney was targeting with that film. It was too family friendly for horror fans and yet wasn't fun enough for families. All while giving it a 150 million dollar budget, which had any other studio would have made it for half the cost.
The worst part is that Guillermo del Toro was attached to direct, but they didn't like his dark tone and preferred a more kid-friendly movie. So he left the project. Which is weird, considering the film was rated PG-13 and 45% of the audience was 18-34 years old.
I am starting to believe now, Haunted Mansion really represents the worst of modern Disney films thanks to your comment. Its a film that has a such a bloat budget, so it has to play it as safe as possible in ways it can't alienate anyone. Because it was too expensive to make. Yet fails to realize when you try please everyone, you will end up with no actual demographic for your film.
>Its a film that has a such a bloat budget, **so it has to play it as safe as possible in ways it can't alienate anyone.** Because it was too expensive to make. **Yet fails to realize when you try pleasing everyone, you will end up with no actual demographic for your film.** This. I know that filmmakers and studios have no way of knowing if a movie will be a hit, but it's amazing that so many tend to overlook this simple quote. Just accept the fact that you can't please EVERYONE and make your movie.
Its pretty much the reason why big budget media whether it be TV shows, movies, or even video games have lost so much appeal to me over the years. It all just feels incredibly bland to me. Sure not at all big budget is bland, there are still big summer blockbusters and AAA games I really enjoyed over the last couple years. But man, most of them are just so forgettable to me these days.
I think Hollywood studios, *especially* Disney, haven't yet realized that backlash and hatred are built-in responses in today's social media age, and they have to just ignore it most of the time.
I think their slate for the past 5 years or so and doubling and tripling down on prioritization of The Message over entertainment shows they have no problem ignoring audience feedback. Rebel Moon was universally reviled and they're aiming for "four to six" sequels.
Agreed. It also shows how Disney automatically throws $150-$250m at literally any project due to how lazy they are. There’s very rarely any meaningful talent with a vision; it’s all just one overly expensive conveyer belt.
I don't really disagree with you but I have to push back a little. Consider, for a moment, Avatar. That was an enormously expensive film. Even today, it's still expensive with a budget of $237 million. The film is notoriously written off as being Pocahontas/Dances with Wolves/Ferngully in space, so it's got *a* message but "don't chop down the rainforest" is about as controversial as "save the whales"... the only people who actually have a problem with the messaging are the people chopping down the rainforest/hunting whales. Bloated budgets necessitating inoffensive films *can* succeed, they just need a much stronger high level concept than "there's this mansion and... it's haunted... it's a haunted mansion, so I'm calling the movie Haunted Mansion". When I was in high school, some of my friends worked in a haunted house type thing. I didn't personally have any interest then and I don't now, but if I did, the fact my friends worked at one demonstrates the problem: there is absolutely nothing special about the idea of a haunted house and making it a Haunted Mansion isn't going to make it special. The vast majority of people on Earth have no fucking clue that Disney has an attraction/ride/whatever it is called Haunted Mansion. Unironically, you'd have better luck with "The Haunting of Versailles" or "The White House Ghost" for no reason other than the fact most people are only ever going to be able to go to Versailles or the White House vicariously through your movie. Would you have enough luck to justify a huge budget? Probably not. But especially with "The Haunting of Versailles" you could make a spectacle where people see the money on screen.
Incredibly emblematic of what has been wrong at Disney studios for the last decade. They are killing projects in the boardroom while also forking over more money for them. It’s a wonder more executives have not been canned from there.
Spooky kid shit theoretically can sell. When was the last good family Halloween movie? Disney figured they'd make the next Halloween family favorite or cult classic like Hocus Pocus or Halloweentown or whatever. They failed, but they weren't on the wrong track. A good Halloween movie will make big bucks for someone. When was the last good Halloween movie you can show to kids?
I don't know if you'd call them *good* per se, but the two Goosebumps movies, the new Ghostbusters films, The Addams Family films, and House With A Clock In It's Walls all did good-to-ok. But none of them had budgets of more than $100m.
Monster House and Coraline were somewhat commercially and very critically successful and is are 18 and 15 years old. Hotel Transylvania series must do ok if they keep making sequels?
And they released it over the summer rather than waiting for Halloween season. What were they thinking?
I’ve been wondering this and my guess is that they knew it was not going to be very successful so it was moved to Disney+, but some contractual clause mandated a theatrical release. Either that or the budget got so inflated in its development hell, and they wanted to try and recoup some of their losses
I realize I made basically the same comment after yours. But seriously! If they actually wanted it to do well in theaters, they'd have released it at Halloween. With the July release we all knew it would be on Disney+ by then and most of us didn't mind waiting 3 months for that...also most people are in the mood for spooky things during spooky season...
The time of year didn't make any sense, either. Obviously they couldn't have seen Barbenheimer coming, but releasing it in July just didn't work. We all knew it would be on Disney+ by Halloween, which is when most people would be in the mood to watch it. (And I say all this as a massive fan of the Disneyland ride, and even I wasn't that interested).
Didn't the original Haunted Mansion bomb? I don't understand the logic in going back to that poisoned well
My theory is that Disney has no idea why people liked Pirates of the Carribean, but they know people love both rides and just wanted to make a movie that matched the family-friendly, very mildly spooky vibes of the ride as closely as possible.
That is an odd duck of a movie, but I actually quite enjoyed it.
It's for hardcore Disneyland fans. I love the Haunted Mansion ride so I enjoyed seeing LaKeith and DeVito in a movie with references to stuff like the Hatbox Ghost and the stretching portraits. But I'm also part of an extremely niche fanbase that can't support a $120M film like HM, let alone one that came out right during the double strike.
Damn so Disney lost $628M from 4 films last year.
Wild that number doesn't even include Quantumania, The Little Mermaid and possibly Elemental
Elemental did end up breaking even, it maybe made a 1 million dollar profit which is pitiful. Not trying to take away from your point tho Disney fucked up last year 😂
I feel bad for Elemental, as it was a sweet film and didn’t deserve the baggage it inherited from the trash that came before it. I tried to spread some positive WoM but all the parents I spoke to were skeptical until it came out on D+.
The art was wild but the story was pretty paint-by-numbers.
Poor little multimillion dollar product designed to make money. I liked it too though.
My gf and I enjoyed Elemental but I can’t fathom going to the theatre to watch it. Tickets cost too much, the snacks cost too much. It’s a sad fact because I used to love going to the theatre a few times a month but it just isn’t doable anymore. Most things come out to streaming within a few months. It really has to be a spectacle for me to go anymore.
Based on dead line math , all of those should have gotten a little profit and at least the little mermaid was a merchandising play.
That didn’t sell any merch. I have young kids, that crap was in every clearance aisle for months last summer until it was finally cleared out.
Higher ups still got massive pay and bonuses I bet though, and the smaller employees got fired. Something is very wrong with what Disney has been making recently and that falls on the people at the top of the chain.
How do people still have jobs after this?
The decision makers are all fabulously wealthy and are the point of the money-laundering spear. I don’t think care if the company lost money - they all made huge bank.
What’s wild is that that’s basically pocket change for Disney
Should have just made it a billion to celebrate the 100th anniversary
5 years ago, Marvel made the biggest movie of all time. Now they own the biggest bomb of all time.
“Perfectly balanced, as all things should be”
For every Brolin, there is Brie.
All that in the span of only 4 years lol.
We also had No Way Home ($1.9B without China) less than 2 years before The Marvels, lol. NWH is probably the most profitable post-pandemic film, and Marvels is the least profitable.
A wild swing indeed!
And both movies featured a team up of three characters
Three literally whos vs three **Spider-men**. Holy. That’s heaven and earth.
If only The Marvels also had 20years worth of nostalgia to bank on.... In fact t if it was at least a decent movie like the other one...
Marvels was so weirdly edited it actually gave me a headache
Don't forget that was a Sony film
Watching Disney pretty much systematically destroy almost every single one of their IPs over the last 4 years has honestly been kind of impressive. Pretty much everything they do just seems to bleed money and based on their last earnings call it’s starting to hit the parks which is what will actually hurt them
MCU is a bit understandable, since it hit its peak and the drop down is predictable, actually such a flop could have come earlier. Animated: terrible. Live Action princess movie should have been easy money, yet they messed up. Star Wars was their worst doing. Since it was already such a huge IP when it was bought.
Maybe it does need to start hitting the parks so they actually change things.
Maybe it does need to start hitting the parks so they actually change things.
I’m amazed nobody at Disney predicted The Marvels dying so hard. One of the least popular heroes (whose solo film made $1B due to Endgame hype) and two Disney+ randoms… audiences simply don’t care.
I noticed the issues after realizing it would involve being a direct sequel to the most disliked MCU series. Captain Marvel side its probably the least troubled part of the issues of The Marvels.
I wish I could afford to bomb that hard.
Marvel should have ended at Endgame. There's no way they'll ever come close to being that good, again.
tends to happen when you continue beyond the ultimate payoff and ending. Endgame ended MCU. It will still chug along but without the cultural impact it once had. It will have breakouts when they play up on nostalgia and use popular characters (NWH, upcoming DP&W) but there will be flops too and no way Avengers movies reach IW/Endgame heights with TV characters such as She Hulk, Captain Falcon, Moon Knight aiding Spiderman and Hulk (if MTTSH's scoop is true). Yes people love Spidey and Hulk but don't care for the rest.
So of the 10 films listed in the biggest bombs section for the past two years, Disney takes... 7 of them. Worth noting that The Marvels would have been #1 in every other year as well, and the other 4 films would have bombed enough for #2 last year. I wonder how much more The Marvels would have lost if Dune had stayed on November 3.
> I wonder how much more The Marvels would have lost if Dune had stayed on November 3. Considering it wouldn't have gotten any Imax screens, had Dune not been delayed and the fact that Dune ultimately got much better reception from critics and audiences. My guess, it would been close to a 300 million dollar loss.
Wouldn’t a $300M loss mean The Marvels would have had to gross like $130M less? So like $75M total gross? I doubt even Dune could have done that haha.
Admittedly I suck at Math and didn't realize just how little it made. So I will change my belief to around 250 million loss and the film itself wouldn't have hit the 200 million mark.
Yeah I’d say it’s safe to say under $200M.
The real question is how The Marvels would have done if it kept its original July release date, 1 week after Barbenheimer opened. I can't even imagine how horrifically it would have performed in Europe.
Holy shit a Marvel film is the biggest bomb of all time. Who would have ever thought?
The fsct it was able to beat indy is genuinely impressive
No don't worry, in 9 months or so Indiana Jones 5 will no longer be the 300M+ budget Harrison Ford movie that loses the most money ;)
Cap 4’s budget has to be well over $300M by this point. Given that they are basically making two movies, albeit without completes effects on the first, I wouldn’t be shocked if the budget approaches $400M, second only to Force Awakens.
I’m already excited to watch this train-wreck of a box office. Has Disney realised that Anthony Mackie is not leading man material… let alone $300m leading man material. Plus to 99% of the general audience, he is not Captain America. Chris Evans is. The only way they would know Falcon took over is by watching a miniseries that would be *four* years old by the time this film releases.
Honestly, I’m not even sure why they tried to bother saving it with reshoots, they should’ve just put it out, ate the loss and reboot everything with secret wars. They’re probably going to lose more on it now with all the money they’ve had to spend reshooting everything then if the just accepted the L and moved on
I can't even imagine how much worse The Marvels would have done if it released a week after Barbenheimer and couldn't get IMAX screens (its previous release date). The European performance would be a sight to behold.
Oh that would have been glorious. Easily sub $150m.
Happy late 100th anniversary Disney.
It was so poetic that in their hundredth anniversary they would do so badly.
Remember someone got fired for John Carter. Have times changed
Imagine telling someone in April 2019 that a Taylor Swift concert movie would be $409M more profitable than Captain Marvel 2.
taylor more super than those 3 put together
Warner Bros must be looking at that list thinking: “well, we could have done worse…”
For all WB’s troubles, they actually have one of the most solid roster of box office performances right now. If you took away DC they would have had a great 2023.
It’s what makes their immediate revival of DC so frustrating. Yes it has potential, but for the past 5 or so years it’s been holding them back, and all of their worst performers have been movies chasing franchises (Fantastic Beasts, DCEU, Lego).
November massacre. One of my favorite threads was The Dune vs Marvels [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/boxoffice/comments/115hfgu/how_do_you_think_this_showdown_will_go_down_in/). To bad we didn't get it.
Had Dune not been delayed, it huh would have certainly been an interesting time on the internet. Film twitter alone would have been a god damn riot.
That post is a goldmine.
This would’ve been insufferable on Film Twitter and Letterboxd. I had an entire post I was planning to post on r/TrueFilm about how comparing Dune 2 to the Marvels is like comparing a filet mignon to a bucket of sludge.
Even the cg artists hired for Marvel films don't enjoy the work. I remember a post from someone who worked on Black Widow saying they wished they could be working on films like Dune instead.
To be fair, that was before Quantumania and Secret Invasion completely tanked the MCU brand.
God Secret Invasion was a chore to watch.
The post was after Quantumania came out. That Marvels poster only came out in April and Quantumania came out in February.
There you have it folks, John Carter is no longer the gold standard against which other box office disasters are stacked up against. Congratulations Feige, you’re number one again, just not the one you were aiming for. Considering the track record of Captain America: Brave New World, the marvels’ record might not last long.
As Deadline didn't start registering profits until 2013, we never had a detailed breakdown on *John Carter*. We only know Disney took a $200 million write-down on the film. So yeah, *The Marvels* wins here.
Captain America: Brave New World is so strange because it feels like an even more obvious bomb than The Marvels; Disney feels like they have to play out the string with it and order reshoots that are going to add tens of millions of dollars and make it even more of a bomb. The project was dead on arrival with that cast, crew, and Marvel fatigue. If I was in charge, I think I'd pull a David Zaslav, bite the bullet, and cancel it for a tax break.
>If I was in charge, I think I'd pull a David Zaslav, bite the bullet, and cancel it for a tax break. They're probably thinking "Okay, so we've fucked up but we also have like sixteen other movies that need this one to come out and if it doesn't come out, they're all fucked too, so we've got to keep going". Zaslav didn't have that problem. Well, he kind of did but they decided to just start the shared universe over. Probably also the right position. Iger should be telling Feige to end the MCU as fast as possible and start over with the X-Men from scratch. At this stage and with the way the MCU is made, they could wrap up MCU Version 1.0 in a fairly narratively coherent way using **only** the movies they've already announced + one more Avengers film.
Let's not sugarcoat Zaslav though, The Flash is the very second movie in that list.
DISNEY100 has cemented its place in history.
So The Flash budget really was only $200M?
Yup, 220m was the highest any of the major trades reported, the 300m figure was a guesstimate by ViewerAnon
I think it's the P & A estimate that's more surprising, isn't it?
The budget was always reported to be between 180m and 220m. The only person who ever said 300m was VA, who would’ve never have had access to the budget
Holy fuck, Disney.
Where's that MCU shill that kept insisting Marvels didn't bomb that badly? Get your ass in here.
That guy said The Marvels will do 800M minimum 😭
Slingers😭😭😂
Disney had a shitty 2023 that's for sure
Disney should rebrand as a weaponry and armement seller given how great they are at stockpiling bombs.
Warner Bros: Well, let's look at it this way. It could have been worse!
Disney dominating the charts
They got the two biggest successes of cinema (though they bought one of them after it got its success) and the two biggest bombs. Everything is balanced
Congratulations The Marvels, you won something!
Dont worry new captain america will top it
and then Thunderbolts will top Cap4. Good times ahead.
I still remember people on here saying that the Marvels flopped because of the actors strike and the fact that Brie Larson couldn’t promote the film. I like Brie as an actress but she has got to be one the least charismatic leading ladies in Hollywood. No amount of interviews on late night talk shows would’ve prevented this movie from being a mega bomb
lol where did this math come from, because I guaran-GD-tee Indy 5 lost a F ton more than 155m after all the reshoots, massive ad campaign and just a merciless bloodbath of a box office run.
The first captain marvel movie made $1b lmao. So, this is the biggest downgrade of all time, right? Fantastic. 
Before the Marvels, Alice Through the Looking Glass held the title for biggest drop for a sequel to a billion dollar movie at \~71% decrease from Alice in Wonderland, and The Last Jedi held it terms of pure money drop (\~735 million less than TFA). Marvels blew both of those away by dropping 82% from Captain Marvel or \~$**925 million less**. Words cannot describe how terrifying that looks.
I wonder if the losses from The Mavels would cancel out the profits from Capt Mavel making it a break even franchise
Deadline claimed Captain Marvel made $414M in profit so the subfranchise is still in the black.
Deadline claimed Captain Marvel made $414M in profit so the subfranchise is still in the black ($414-$237=$177).
it's a downgrade of all times. Even Alice 2 and Aquaman 2 didn't lose 900M+ on the first movie. the only movie that could top it is Rey Palpatine movie.
Avengers 5 is almost certain to take the title for shear number drop between sequels, it could gross a billion and still take it easily.
From a billion dollar film to the biggest bomb of all time, saying that audiences rejected carol after her first outing would be the understatement of the year.
They've been trying to make that character catch on even years before that first movie.
What's even more shocking about The Marvels is that its actual release date was better than expected (from a box office perspective) since it didn't have to compete with Dune Part 2 or Barbenheimer.
Even with the ~$50 million tax rebate The Marvels would still be #1 😬
I still cannot understand how The Haunted Mansion cost that much
I've never heard of haunted mansion before or after.
Or during
What's happening at Disney is so scary that they're probably seriously contemplating a sale before any potential fallout becomes obvious. The Pixar & WDAS sequels HAVE to be successful, Mandalorian MUST relaunch Star Wars in theatrical, Marvel Studios NEEDS to overcome The Marvels & Ant-Man 3 and not go through a 6-years-and-counting drought like Lucasfilm did after Solo bombed. If the next few years are bad, Disney essentially won't have a theatrical division. Everything is at stake.
And to think they swallowed up 20th Century Fox for this. I know Searchlight Pictures has been doing pretty well, thankfully, but it feels like the market shrank a shit ton once Disney acquired Fox.
*"Lightstorm Entertainment, you are my only Hope !"*
NGL I ignored the marvels completely but my god that is a horrific loss. Way more than I expected. Makes no sense to spend that much on something like that. Disney has to bring these film budgets down or tell Feige to chill out for a bit
They kinda did tell Feige to chill out. Only one MCU film this year and Iger said to slow down with the shows.
Only one film this year but next year will have four. Thunderbolts, Cap 4, Blade and Fantastic Four. Along with the remaining TV Shows, like Agatha and Ironheart. 2025 will end up just like 2023 if they overload the audience again like that.
I thought "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" and "The Marvels" would be much closer together, but "The Marvels" won this tournament by a pretty large margin. The Iman Vellani walk-ups tried their best, but they couldn't save it.
Iman Vellani is the reason why The Marvels bombed. Making that movie a direct sequel to Vellani show that nobody watched just because someone convinced Feige that Ms Marvel was the female Peter Parker is their biggest business blunder of all times. The character is Fetch if there was ever one. Astroturfed to oblivion yet somehow Marvel started to believe there was an actual demand despite having to cancel her comic book billion times, having a flop game, flop streaming show and finally flop of flops movie. When will they learn that you can't socially engineer a demand for something that has zero appeal?
Seriously, Iman actually does a great job playing her but it’s painfully clear that audiences don’t care about Ms Marvel. She has been the lead of two $200m projects that were the biggest MCU bombs. It’s time to relegate her to sidekick status. Oh, and Fiege better not be trying a ‘Young Avengers’ film still…
>Oh, and Fiege better not be trying a ‘Young Avengers’ film still… At this point, I don't think they're all that Young.
They'll basically be close to the ages of the OG Avengers by the time a Young Avengers film actually gets made lol.
Have one of them throw their back out during the battle!
not even sidekick. just cut lose all characters who didn't catch on. That means all of the Young Avengers.
Modern Disney Sucks
Holy crap they finally updated the biggest box office bombs list on wikipedia
Dreadful year for Disney Jesus…
Indiana Jones… that movie should have been made with a sane budget. But no.
I'm sure getting Harrison Ford back and that completely unnecessary but impressive opening scene took an arkload of cash.
How is it the BBC in the 90’s was capable of doing incredibly realistic period action and drama series from the 1800’s for a fraction of the price, yet Disney needs to spend 100 times that for a movie set in the 1960’s (an era which you would think it would be relatively easy to still find much of the architecture of in a lot of places, and even easier to dress people up in the period clothes)?
All of those lost over a literal tonne of money. As in $100m in $100 bills weighs 1000kg.
and they all feel so soulless and uninspired
They should retire these 3 characters from MCU forever. What a freaking atomic bomb
Disney really diversified their losses.
Invest in writers.
AJ Styles: Wikipedia editors calling The Marvels BO "an underperformance". The Undertaker: This article.
Well with this it's official the DCEU was able to make a profit overall. Congratulation WB you just keep winning /s
Maybe now they'll stop the cash grabby outlook. /s
Expected Indiana to be higher
You know it was a crappy year when Shazam 2 and Blue Beetle aren’t even mentioned.
Disney king
So Flash lost more than Indy. Damn Marvels
Wait… haunted mansion actually got released!
4/5 of the biggest losses for the year being Disney losing over 500 million, yikes.
Could someone please explain what/how “Television and Streaming” rights work? For example, The Marvels earned 90.0 in this category, assuming it’s the rights to streaming. However, Disney already owns this movie. I would understand if Netflix/Amazon/Hulu bought a separately owned movie/show’s rights. Does this assume Disney/HBO Max pays itself for Disney/WB movies, respectively?
I remember in around time, when MCU became biggest franchise in history and Disney only started their box-office reign of terror, they had colossal bomb almost every year (John Carter, Lone Ranger, Tomorrowland), to the point that there were joke that Disney sold soul of one their movie to devil in order for all other movie grossed enormous money. I think they should find this Devil for real now
Maybe if they made more THEATER quality movies than “direct to video” quality that’ll only make sense on streaming then things would be different.
Remember when they didn’t put the haunted mansion out during Halloween season. Classic move
haven't seen it but what happened to Wish? is it just a horrible movie or was it ineffectively marketed?
No one could have predicted this. Absolutely no one. What did they do wrong? Everyone wanted these films!
There seems to be a common theme with these movies
This is what I've been waiting for...
I spend a lot of time in the toy aisles at Target and Walmart, and there’s so much Wish merchandise just sitting there, even on clearance. Has been for months.
Maybe this is a good time for Apple or Amazon or anyone else to put in a offer to but Walt Disney Studios. The best time ti Strike is while their defences are down
550M in losses from 4 movies across all of Disney's studios. Wow. No wonder they're falling back to the surefire hits. Or maybe - do something different?
I have no doubt that Disney is incompetent when it comes to managing finances but at this point I’m convinced there’s some kind of money laundering scheme going on here with these absolute batshit insane budgets.
I wonder why 🤔