It was only yesterday that an interview with The Marvels director Nia DaCosta purportedly confirmed the budget of the incoming sequel to be $130 million, which would tie it with the first Ant-Man as the franchise’s cheapest feature-length installment ever.
Fast forward to today, though, and Disney itself has blown that notion out of the water by filing financial returns that actually reveal the Captain Marvel follow-up to be one of the most expensive non-Avengers productions in Marvel Cinematic Universe history. There’s Hollywood accounting, and then there’s being wide of the mark by nigh-on $90 million.
As reported by Forbes, the Mouse House funneled $274.8 million into the project from start to finish, but the production costs were whittled down to $219.8 million after tax incentives from the United Kingdom government. That means the only MCU films that don’t feature Earth’s Mightiest Heroes to assemble that cost more are Eternals, Captain America: Civil War, Thor: Love and Thunder, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
Technically, you could even strike James Gunn’s threequel from the list seeing as part of those funds were allocated to be used on the Disney Plus special, but that’s just splitting hairs for the sake of it. Instead of being the least expensive of all-time, then, The Marvels has instead transpired as one of the 10 costliest MCU blockbusters that’s ever been made.
Now that one record low has been summarily debunked, maybe we’ll get some confirmation on those runtime rumors to clear the air that little bit further.