The two movies Marvel lost money on shouldn't come as a surprise

Marvel Studios was once a juggernaut that turned even the most unknown of Marvel Comics heroes into box office sensations. It's very much still capable of doing that, but the studio has been having a bit of a tough time as of late due to a number of missteps that caused longtime fans to question the future of the franchise.

The Disney Plus platform has allowed the Marvel Cinematic Universe to explore small-screen storytelling with new and exciting characters, but general response to some of the TV shows have been rather mixed. This, and a number of lacklustre outings on the big screen, has seen the saga into somewhat of a downward spiral.

The numbers reflect this, as a new report confirms that the studio actually lost money on two of its recent movies.

Ant-Man 3 and The Marvels cost Marvel money

A new report from Bloomberg looking at some of the challenges Disney has faced over the past year reveals that both Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and The Marvels "failed to turn a profit". The latter likely won't come as a surprise as its box office underperformance was widely publicized, but the fact that it wasn't the first film of the year that Marvel lost money on really does highlight how rough 2023 was for the studio.

After a mixed response to Phase Four, Marvel Studios was hoping to use Phase Five to stabilize things, but they only got more rocky for the MCU.

Quantumania received a mixed response from audiences and a very negative response from critics, setting it up to struggle at the box office. And yet it somehow opened to the best opening weekend of the whole Ant-Man franchise thus far. The problem was that it didn't have the legs that the first two movies did, with interest in it quickly drying up and no positive word-of-mouth to keep the buzz alive. As a result, it still became the lowest-grossing movie of the Ant-Man series, finishing its run at $476 million - a figure that would have been solid if the film didn't cost $326 million to make.

It was a significant underperformance but Quantumania did find itself within reach of breaking even (though it still fell short). The same unfortunately can't be said for The Marvels, which was the only MCU movie to outright flop at the box-office, grossing $206 million against a budget of $274 million. The fact that it was one of the MCU's most expensive movies was a questionable move considering it wasn't presented as a must-see film within the franchise, but The Marvels was always going to struggle to live up to the monumental success of its predecessor, Captain Marvel, which dominated the box office and crossed the $1 billion mark.

Those weren't the studio's only shortcomings in 2023, as Disney Plus series Secret Invasion - which was the project set to give Nick Fury the spotlight - received an overwhelmingly negative response from both fans and critics, with its finale becoming the lowest-scoring MCU project of all time on Rotten Tomatoes, scoring just 7%.

The good news is that there were some significant success stories in 2023, including Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which crossed the $800 million mark at the box office and sent the titular heroes out on the highest of highs. Loki season 2 was also acclaimed by viewers, performing well for Disney Plus after a two-year wait for its return.

These wins have been very much needed for Marvel, and it's hoped that they will set the MCU up for a comeback, starting with this year's Deadpool and Wolverine aiming to take that comeback to the next level. With the unbelievable levels of hype for the team-up, and Hugh Jackman's return as Wolverine, here's hoping that is exactly what happens.