This is really something that should wind up on my other blog, but I’m putting it here because it’s about generalized stupidity on the Internet.
What else is new?
So, in a discussion about movie box offices, someone came by and said “Doctor Strange 2 made tons of money!” I responded and said that while it did make a profit, it was one of the very few in Marvel’s phase 4 that did, it still underperformed in the box office.
That, of course, pissed him off.
It’s shocking how many people don’t understand how basic economics works. In general, for movies, you take the production budget, add in the marketing budget and double it to get what it takes for the movie to break even. That’s because the production company, Disney/Marvel in this case, doesn’t make all of that money. About half goes to the theaters, the distributors, etc. Some people argue that it should be 2.5x budget, but we’ll keep it simple for now.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of people out there, and this was very prevalent for the recent Little Mermaid live-action disaster, who were saying “it’s made $300 million and it only cost $250 million to make, therefore it made a profit!” No, you’re an idiot. That movie is going to end up losing money because the production budget was $250 million, the marketing budget was at least $140 million, although I’ve heard unconfirmed reports that it may be as much as $200 million, plus there were a lot of reshoots that were not factored into the initial $250 million production budget, therefore it has to make, just staying with original numbers that are likely far too low, it has to make at least $780 million to just break even, never mind making a profit.
It is not going to get anywhere remotely close.
Now the fact is, these people don’t want the truth. They just want to live in their comforting fantasy world and when you explain the harsh facts of life, they get mad. Going back to this Doctor Strange thing, I said 2 things. First, that it made a profit, one of the few projects in Marvel’s phase 4 that did, and that it underperformed at the box office. Those things are factually true.
They just don’t care. Then they tried “but it was the fourth highest grossing movie of 2022!” Big deal. It doesn’t change anything that I said. He argued that it was just behind Avatar 2, Top Gun: Maverick and Minions 3. Yes it was. You know what the difference was? Each of those movies either met or vastly exceeded box office expectations. They did BETTER than anyone expected, or, in the case of Minions, they were at least in line with expectations and Doctor Strange: MOM did WORSE!
Here’s the actual data! This is what I posted!
You’re still just making a fool of yourself. Apparently, you don’t know how to read, not that I suspect that you care. So let’s look at the actual data.
Top Gun: Maverick, since you brought it up, vastly OVERPERFORMED at the box office. It was expected to make somewhere between $400 and $500 million in the domestic box office. It made over $700 million.
https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Top-Gun-Maverick-(2022)#tab=box-office
Minions 3 performed right in line with box office projections, which were between $280-$420 million. It came in at $369 million domestically.
https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Minions-The-Rise-of-Gru-(2021)#tab=box-office
Avatar 2 vastly outperformed box office expectations, which were supposed to be between $325-$525 million domestically and it came in at almost $700 million.
https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Avatar-The-Way-of-Water-(2022)#tab=box-office
I already showed how Doctor Strange 2 underperformed box office expectations. So everything I have been saying has been factually correct, backed up by evidence. Are you going to continue to double down on your own ignorance or what?
Yet they don’t care about that, do they? They’re looking to get to the emotionally-comforting narrative that they want. There’s the data. What I said corresponds to the data (here’s the link for DS:MOM, in case you want to look for yourself). Stop making a fool of yourself.
Sad that these people simply refuse, right?