UPDATE: ‘The Marvels’ Actually Turns Out To Be the Most Expensive Movie of the Multiverse Saga

We all know how it started. The Marvel Cinematic Universe started as an idea full of potential, and who knows how many people believed it would eventually become what it is today. Every MCU movie is a high-budget blockbuster, and it’s not uncommon for Marvel Studios to invest at least $200 million in production and who knows how much more in marketing.

The first ‘Iron Man’ movie, which started the franchise, was filmed for $140 million, and before the first crossover movie, ‘The Avengers,’ no MCU movie was filmed for more than $170 million, which is significantly lower than the budget of MCU movies nowadays. ‘The Avengers’ was filmed for $220 million, but with the release of ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron,’ the ‘Avengers’ movies became unique for having extremely high budgets, even for MCU standards. ‘Avengers: Endgame,’ the latest one, had a budget of $350-400 million, which puts it among the TOP 10 most-expensive movies ever made.

With the conclusion of the Infinity Saga, Marvel Studios and Disney continued to invest large amounts of money into new movies, although the only MCU movie that joined the dollar club since ‘Endgame’ is ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home.’ There have been some reports about Disney potentially reducing costs on some of the upcoming MCU projects, and it looks like ‘The Marvels’ might be one of those.

Following the reports of being the cheapest MCU movie in a while, ‘The Marvels’ turns out to be quite the opposite!

Since the Multiverse Saga started in 2021, every MCU movie has been filmed for at least $200 million, with the exception of ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,’ which had a budget of $150 million, while ‘Thor: Love and Thunder,’ ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ and ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’ had budgets of $250 million each.

Initially, according to Vanity Fair (via DiscussingFilm), the 33rd MCU movie, ‘The Marvels,’ has been filmed for $130 million, which would’ve made it the cheapest MCU movie yet, along with 2015’s ‘Ant-Man,’ which was filmed for the same amount of budget. For comparison, the original ‘Captain Marvel’ movie had a budget of $175 million.

UPDATE: However, a new report from Forbes subsequently revealed that ‘The Marvels’ actually had a production budget of $274.8 million, which makes it the most expensive MCU movie since 2019’s ‘Avengers: Endgame,’ and therefore, the most expensive movie of the Multiverse Saga. The report also noted that Disney spent only $219.8 million, while the rest was a subsidy from the United Kingdom government.

Regardless of this update, as Vanity Fair previously mentioned, ‘The Marvels’ is still the highest-budgeted movie helmed by a Black woman. Nia DaCosta, who was 30 when she was hired to direct the movie, is also the youngest director Marvel Studios has hired so far.

‘The Marvels’ follows Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers, aka Captain Marvel, in her new adventure as she teams up with Iman Vellani’s Kamala Khan, aka Ms. Marvel, and Teyonah Parris’ Monica Rambeau, to stop a new villain called Dar-Benn, who Zawe Ashton plays. Samuel L. Jackson also returns as Nick Fury.

Directed by Nia DaCosta, ‘The Marvels’ is scheduled to open in theaters on November 10, 2023.

Are you looking forward to ‘The Marvels’? Let us know in the comments.