Disney Unveils Doctor Strange 2’s Massive Budget & Raises Questions on How Profitable the Movie Was
It’s been 2 years since ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’ was released, but we’re only now learning that it was one of the most expensive movies ever made, in the MCU and in general.
Disney has disclosed that the budget for the 2022 superhero film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness reached a remarkable $414.9 million as reported by Forbes, surpassing even the hefty budget of ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron.’
Despite this, ‘Age of Ultron’ generated significantly more profit at the box office compared to ‘Multiverse of Madness,’ despite having a lower production cost. The film, a sequel to 2016’s ‘Doctor Strange,’ features Benedict Cumberbatch reprising his role as the sorcerer, alongside Elizabeth Olsen as Scarlet Witch.
Still, despite the gargantuan production costs, the movie still managed to earn quite a bit.
‘Avengers: Endgame’ holds the highest earnings with $2,799,439,100, followed by ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ with $2,052,415,039. ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,’ released in 2022, earned $955,775,804, while ‘Doctor Strange’ (2016) earned $677,796,833. When we take into account the production costs + marketing for the movie, which easily doubles & triples the movie’s budget, Forbes concluded that the movie earned around $127.3 million of pure profit.
This is just one of the most recent examples of bloated budgets, and one more example on why it’s hard to turn a profit on superhero movies in recent times. As a reminder, going by the box office, Disney found itself on the list of biggest losers in 2023, with not a single movie breaking a billion-dollar threshold, with ‘The Marvels’ definitely being one of the biggest flops, the movie not even breaking $100 million at the domestic box office.
But, this budget problem is not strictly an MCU problem. As reported by several sources the budget for the upcoming ‘Joker 2’ is estimated to be $200 million, 4 times the costs of the original ‘Joker’ released in 2019.
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