Captain America 4

[TP2000]

This movie is not doing well and here is why. Note: You have to remember inflation (up) and the amount of people visiting the theaters today (down), so it is silly to compare movies from five to ten years ago.

The budget for this movie was not $180MM. They had at least two major re-shoots (which delayed this movie again and again) so I would almost double it. But lets say that is not important right now and just run the numbers for ticket prices and attendance.

• Avg Ticket Prices:
  • 2014 - $8.17
  • 2022 - $10.53
  • 2024 - $15.17

For comparison, we will use Winter Soldier which made $95MM - TEN years ago for three day weekend (NA only) while Cap 4 made $88.5MM for a three day weekend (NA only). Simple math: $95MM / $8.17 = 11.6MM in attendance. For Cap 4 per Deadline, 5.8MM in attendance! This is not a movie people wanted and disservice to Anthony Mackie.

Disney (including Hollywood Reporter, Deadline and Variety), we see what you are doing here and please stop! The trades mags need to stop comparing pre-pandemic movies because it is not accurate. This is going to hurt merchandise sales as well.

Really interesting take on using the average cost of ticket prices in the past versus today to come up with ballpark attendance figures! That's quite telling, and the trendline is clear.

FYI, the box office tracking website has a nifty Inflation Adjusted feature that uses the federal government's CPI to show the inflation adjusted numbers on specific films. You can track up to six movies together and see their inflation adjusted box office that way, and it's very helpful.

For example, here's how those inflation adjusted dollars look for Winter Soldier compared to the most recent Captain America.

https://thenumbers.com/movies/custom-comparisons/Captain-America-Brave-New-World-(2025)/Captain-America-The-Winter-Soldier?mode=actuals#tab=day_by_day_comparison

 

[LindseyDisney]

I'm just happy I no longer have to see the flashing light trailer.

 

[Disney Irish]

Really interesting take on using the average cost of ticket prices in the past versus today to come up with ballpark attendance figures! That's quite telling, and the trendline is clear.

FYI, the box office tracking website has a nifty Inflation Adjusted feature that uses the federal government's CPI to show the inflation adjusted numbers on specific films. You can track up to six movies together and see their inflation adjusted box office that way, and it's very helpful.

For example, here's how those inflation adjusted dollars look for Winter Soldier compared to the most recent Captain America.

View attachment 844891

https://thenumbers.com/movies/custom-comparisons/Captain-America-Brave-New-World-(2025)/Captain-America-The-Winter-Soldier?mode=actuals#tab=day_by_day_comparison

Again its not some new thing being discussed. Many of us have had this same discussion about declining tickets sales vs increased ticket prices in the box office thread and various other threads in this forum for years now. They've been declining for over 2 decades starting in 2003 after the height of 2002.

Your favorite website has a nice little graph showing the same thing, I marked with an arrow so its clearer the decline -

The Numbers - Movie Market Summary 1995 to 2025

Overall movie market summary for each year 1995 to 2025

www.the-numbers.com

 

[brideck]

Again its not some new thing being discussed. Many of us have had this same discussion about declining tickets sales vs increased ticket prices in the box office thread and various other threads in this forum for years now. They've been declining for over 2 decades starting in 2003 after the height of 2002.

Yeah, I don't remember why, but I definitely did some analysis many pages ago in the Box Office thread (probably in discussion around Poor Things) to show that at least a third of the ticket sales have gone away in the art-house scene since the pandemic, and this is the easiest metric to use for those kinds of determinations.

Though, yeah, you've really got to use the right denominator. Using $10.78 (Source: https://www.the-numbers.com/market/) would get you 8.1m tickets for the 3-day weekend, which is right in line with the first Cap movie's opening.

 

[jrice]

Where did you get the 2024 number from?

As most sites I've seen have the average ticket price for 2023 and 2024 pretty much the same which is $10.78.

The Numbers - Movie Market Summary 1995 to 2025

Overall movie market summary for each year 1995 to 2025

www.the-numbers.com

It is from the Box office stat firm EntTelligence stated the average ticket price for Cap 4 was $15.17 (general). This was from Deadline: http://deadline.com/2025/02/box-office-captian-america-brave-new-world-1236289044/

 

[Serpico Jones]

Joanna Robinson and Dave Gonzalez, who wrote the book "MCU: The Rise of Marvel Studios” are saying it cost 380 million for Captain Falcon.

Good lord! Where did they say that?

 

[Chi84]

Good lord! Where did they say that?

Supposedly on a podcast.

 

[brideck]

Supposedly on a podcast.

Yeah, World of Reel has doubled down on that as well with a recent article, but with no further sourcing other than that it was mentioned on one or more episodes of the authors' podcast, Trial by Content.

 

[Disney Irish]

Yeah, I don't remember why, but I definitely did some analysis many pages ago in the Box Office thread (probably in discussion around Poor Things) to show that at least a third of the ticket sales have gone away in the art-house scene since the pandemic, and this is the easiest metric to use for those kinds of determinations.

Though, yeah, you've really got to use the right denominator. Using $10.78 (Source: https://www.the-numbers.com/market/) would get you 8.1m tickets for the 3-day weekend, which is right in line with the first Cap movie's opening.

BTW, I just looked it up and Numbers has Cap 4 at 9.3M tickets sold so far domestically -

The Numbers - Movie Market Summary for Year 2025

Annual Movie Market Summary for 2025

www.the-numbers.com

 

[brideck]

BTW, I just looked it up and Numbers has Cap 4 at 9.3M tickets sold so far domestically -

Nice, that makes sense. I wasn't including Monday in my figure. Had no idea they did the math for you already on that site.

 

[LSLS]

If the 380 million is accurate for the budget. This is about what it needs to just breakeven.

380 x 2 = 760 million (theaters get half the profits) + 190 million (for marketing) = 950 million (is the breakeven)

I'd be shocked if that is accurate honestly. It's a shorter film, and I can't imagine anyone outside of MAYBE Ford is commanding a giant salary. I don't see any way they would OK this movie knowing they were going to need a billion dollars to break even. I think it's far more likely that $380 number is closer to the break even point not including marketing. I've not seen that number anywhere else.

 

[Chi84]

If the 380 million is accurate for the budget. This is about what it needs to just breakeven.

380 x 2 = 760 million (theaters get half the profits) + 190 million (for marketing) = 950 million (is the breakeven)

But didn’t someone just make up that number on a podcast? Why would we accept it as accurate?

 

[Phroobar]

380m? They must have used the same accounting firm The Acolyte did. That money definitely wasn't present on the screen. Just because it is on a podcast doesn't make it real.

 

[Disstevefan1]

If the 380 million is accurate for the budget. This is about what it needs to just breakeven.

380 x 2 = 760 million (theaters get half the profits) + 190 million (for marketing) = 950 million (is the breakeven)

If the budget is really 380M, the problem is not just that this movie must make almost 1B to break even.

The elephant in the room is the runaway budgets; allowing reshoot after reshoot, no real story to begin with; the creators are not sure what they are writing, etc.

 

[Disney Irish]

But didn’t someone just make up that number on a podcast? Why would we accept it as accurate?

What's funny is that I started to actually listen to the podcast, instead of just pulling it from some second-hand article as some did here, and while they still use a ridiculous number, they don't use that specific number, so again its bad reporting, as its only coming from one article. What's even more strange and makes me question even this number is they claim reshoots were happening when they were still working on the book, which released in October 2023. Timeline though doesn't work on that because principal filming took place between March and June 2023. Which means they were already pretty much finished with the book by the time filming even started. Reshoots weren't even happening until summer 2024, way after the books release. So yeah, they pretty much made it up.

Its even more telling that none of these numbers being quoted even line up with each other. You'd think if it was even true they'd at least all line up with the same amount, but no its like 5-6 different amounts by now. Which shows that its all made up.

 

[brideck]

What's funny is that I started to actually listen to the podcast, instead of just pulling it from some second-hand article as some did here,

I thought about trying to listen, but couldn't decide which episode I might find that discussion in based on the episode titles/summaries that I saw. None of the recent ones claim to be about the MCU.

 

[Disney Irish]

I thought about trying to listen, but couldn't decide which episode I might find that discussion in based on the episode titles/summaries that I saw. None of the recent ones claim to be about the MCU.

While I have no issue with their overall podcast, as they have some interesting takes outside of this, I don't really want to promote something that is clearly misinformation. But look for one about 2025 movies.

 

[LSLS]

For reference, $380 million would make this the 4th most expensive movie of all time, ahead of End Game, Avatar Way of Water, and Fast X.

 

[Disney Irish]

For reference, $380 million would make this the 4th most expensive movie of all time, ahead of End Game, Avatar Way of Water, and Fast X.

I mentioned the same further up in the thread when it was even a lower number being thrown around. Its ridiculous and really only be pushed by one poster who has a gripe against this movie for some reason, common theme from them as its the same tactic as they used in the Mufasa thread.

BTW, there is an even more expensive movie releasing this summer which has an actual confirmed budget of $400M, but I don't really see that one being mentioned too much.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

I'd be shocked if that is accurate honestly. It's a shorter film, and I can't imagine anyone outside of MAYBE Ford is commanding a giant salary. I don't see any way they would OK this movie knowing they were going to need a billion dollars to break even. I think it's far more likely that $380 number is closer to the break even point not including marketing. I've not seen that number anywhere else.

I don’t buy it either, we’ve now heard it had a $180 million production budget, $300 million total budget (including marketing), and a $380 million budget (no idea is that’s production or total).

My gut says the $300 million TOTAL is likely the closest as that would place the production budget near the originally reported $180 million, allow an extra $20 million for reshoots, and include $100 million for marketing (which would be the standard 50% of the production budget).

I think all we can do with so many rumored numbers is use the smell test and try to decide which makes the most sense based on previous films.

Unless we get confirmed numbers I think it’s safe to assume break even is likely in the $500m-$550m range, as much as I disagree with much of Disneys management decisions I find it hard to believe they’d ever move forward with a normal movie that required a billion just to break even. They often make bad decisions but they aren’t stupid.