Based on the swirling online discourse, there’s no other outcome besides The Marvels taking a constant battering from its most ardent detractors before, during, and after its upcoming theatrical release, and the bizarre budgetary backlash underlines that issue in microcosm.
A recent profile on director Nia DaCosta listed the budget of the Captain Marvel sequel at $130 million, which would have seen it tied with Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man as the cheapest feature-length blockbuster in Marvel Cinematic Universe history. Needless to say, deranged takes along the lines of “Marvel isn’t spending any money on it because it knows it’s going to be a disaster” and the like began emerging in short order.
However, the very next day Disney filed its own financial returns to confirm Brie Larson’s return to center stage in fact set the studio back a hefty $220 million, and it would have been the single most expensive non-Avengers production the franchise has ever seen were it not the recipient of some lucrative tax breaks.
Immediately placing the shoe on the other foot, the complete opposite stance was spouted by the trolls and haters, who started offering that The Marvels cost so much money because Marvel was throwing everything at the film in an attempt to salvage the salvageable. It’s nuts, although that’s how these things tend to work, but journalist Christopher Marc ended up hitting the nail squarely on the head with his measured and more than likely accurate assertions on the phenomenon.
The Marvels is damned if it comes cheap and damned if it runs up a substantial tab, then, but as always, the best way to silence the doubters is to embark on a monstrous box office run, even if matching its billion-dollar predecessor might be out of the question.
