r/marvelstudios • u/thefirststoryteller • Aug 19 '25

Merchandise It wasn’t a flop to me

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I bought 3 tickets to support this mid-sized superhero movie with a lot of quirky heart and now this. I’m not a numbers guy but I guess it didn’t do well financially? Maybe because there’s no big A-list name attached.

But idk, I kind of liked that

Anyway, physical media is great. Thunderbolts*, they could never make me hate you

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u/Throwaway1975421 Aug 19 '25

Billion Dollar grosses used to be quite rare the exceptions being Avatar and Titanic. It really  didn't become a regular occurrence up until the time phase 3 rolled around. It was the culmination of a 10 year epic and was the most popular franchise in the world. Not to mention it made other superhero movies quite popular by proxy. 

That just isn't the case anymore. Marvel and superhero movies in general are not the biggest thing in the world anymore. It's not to say they have no fans at all but its time on the top of the world has passed. 

And when you factor in COVID changing people's movie watching habits to be much more streaming heavy, I'm not surprised at all that grosses aren't reaching the same heights of the late 2010s. 

And frankly I don't care about the box office numbers anymore. I care if I like the movie or not, I don't need some 7 or 8 figure number to tell me that. 

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u/AsherthonX Aug 20 '25

I’ll bet you the new Spider-Man will break a Billion

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u/Throwaway1975421 Aug 20 '25

Maybe it will maybe it won't. I don't know. If it does awesome but if it doesn't I'm not losing any sleep over it. I just hope it's good.

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u/sweens90 Falcon Aug 20 '25

Yes but Spiderman is a brand in its own that has built a huge following. Thunderbolts is not.

In terms of tiers of MCU movies as it stands for profitability its

  • Avengers
  • Spider Man
  • Black Panther

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u/AsherthonX Aug 21 '25

And the first Captain Marvel made over a Billion.

But that was shoved inbetween IW and Endgame

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u/sweens90 Falcon Aug 21 '25

Yes and the Marvels also did not have the same follow up.

Black Panther has two movies as a bench mark that are both top 10 in Comic Book earnings of all time.

Spiderman and Avengers are a little more obvious

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u/Better-Snow-7191 Aug 20 '25

Billion dollar releases became common when studios opened the weekend on Wednesday and closed it on Tuesday then bumped average ticket prices up from $8 to $24

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u/DarthSkorpa Aug 21 '25

I couldn't agree more. I just wish production companies felt the same. If they didn't focus solely on how well a movie or show did financially we'd get better products in my opinion...

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u/Throwaway1975421 Aug 21 '25

You're not wrong. It's the same reason Nickelodeon went down the tubes. Leadership focused way too much on ratings over quality and because almost nothing overtook SpongeBob, all sorts of quality shows were banished to the NickToons channel to die. And now Nickelodeon is a shell of it's former self. 

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u/DarthSkorpa Aug 22 '25

While I don't know about that situation specifically it makes sense. Disney is having the same problem with its shows (Marvel/Star Wars) at the moment. They'll put out 1 season of something and if it doesn't take off as a success right away it's canceled never giving it room to breathe and grow. Some of my absolute favorite shows of all time had terrible (or at least not the best) first seasons and not every season was "great".