For eight long years, Hawkeye has been the butt of every joke when it comes to who’s the weakest of the Avengers. As lampooned by the character himself in Avengers: Age of Ultron, he faces off against aliens, robots and more armed with nothing but a bow and arrow. According to a new study, though, Clint Barton is actually the most valuable of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and we’ve been underestimating him all this time.
Not that this study is concerned with who’s the best fighter, mind you. Instead, Film Franchise Showdown has collated the data to determine that Jeremy Renner’s archer is the number one top-grossing member of the Avengers. The study has crunched the numbers for every one of the 23 MCU movies released to date, ranking them based on the return on investment and critics’ ratings. All kinds of figures have been combed through, including production budgets, box office earnings, IMDb scores, metascores and award nominations and wins.
As the site puts it:
“Hawkeye has appeared in six MCU instalments to date, claiming an average ROI of 5.3 per film. In comparison, each film that features Thor has an average ROI of 5.06, Captain America has an ROI of 4.9, and Iron Man has an average ROI of 4.8 per appearance,” the study claims. “The detailed analysis shows that Black Panther remains the best Marvel installment to date thanks to its high box office sum and critical acclaim, while The Incredible Hulk was met with the least financial and critical success overall.”
Hawkeye has so far appeared in Thor, The Avengers, Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Endgame. Perhaps controversially, though, this study counts Avengers: Infinity War as another Hawkeye movie due to how he was “mentioned” in it.
In any case, here’s the full list of the top ten most valuable heroes in the MCU:
- Hawkeye
- Star Lord
- Black Widow
- Captain America
- Iron Man
- Thor
- Nick Fury
- Hulk
- Black Panther
- Doctor Strange
The study also decrees that Spider-Man: Far From Home possesses the largest ROI, having been produced on a $160 million budget and bringing in $1.13 billion at the global box office. This earns it a 7.06 ROI score, beating out even Endgame‘s 6.99 ROI – calculated from its roughly $400 million budget and $2.79 billion gross.
As for what’s next for Barton, Renner is due to return in his own vehicle at last with Disney Plus’ Hawkeye TV series. The show will see him training up protege Kate Bishop, with Hailee Steinfeld believed to be the top choice to take the role. That doesn’t seem to be a massive priority for Marvel at present, however, and it’s unclear when it may land.
