As of this writing, The Marvels (2023) will be out for one full weekend. Based on early projections and performance Thursday through Sunday, the film looks to be a financial flop for Marvel Studios and Disney. As with all big developments, whether bad or good, we always look to answer the most important question of all – What can we learn from this?
Rather than focusing on the quality of the story, the popularity of the characters, and all the Culture War nonsense (yes, it’s nonsense) surrounding the film, we’re going to look at The Marvels from a business forecasting point of view. Why? Because making comics, just like making films, is constrained by budget. You have to know what you can spend, what you expect to make, and when to walk away when the numbers don’t make sense.
Know Thy Audience
The first step is to know your audience. What do they like? What don’t they like? How many are out there? And how much are they willing to pay for what you’re making?
Based on the characters involved, the tone/themes of the marketing material, and the tastes of the target audience, what can we infer?
- Two of the three leads come from Disney+ shows (Monica Rambeau and Kamala Khan), so the film connects with Disney+ subscribers.
- It’s a Marvel superhero film, so the film connects with MCU film fans who haven’t become jaded by the recent strings of flops.
- Of the three leads, Captain Marvel, played by Brie Larson, is the central hero, so the film targets people who are fans of the current incarnation of Captain Marvel and/or Brie Larson.
- The marketing materials heavily feature cats, so presumably, the film is trying to appeal to cat lovers.
- If we go by the notion that moviegoers like to see themselves to fully relate to and enjoy the film, there’s only one semi-strong male character featured anywhere in the film – Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury. Therefore, the focus of the film is on strong female characters, including the villain, so the character composition is designed to attract female filmgoers.
When we put all those facts together, they don’t compound. They overlap. That means the more qualifiers you apply, the smaller the population gets.
Do The Math
To do the math, we have to use the demographic numbers available as a starting point and forecast out. The best source we have right now, which isn’t the best, is Graphic Policy’s FaceBook demographic report. As of the most recent report, we know the following as of March 2021:
- There are 31 Million US women on FB who express an interest in comics.
- According to Pew Research data, 70% of US adults use FB periodically, so we can guesstimate that 44 Million women in the US express an interest in comics.
- According to TVision and BankMyCell reports, there are 122 Million Disney+ subscribers in the US, and 45% are women. That’s ~55 Million viewers of Disney+ content.
- According to a Pawlicy Advisor Report, 26% of US households own cats.
- According to a Forbes ratings report for Disney+ shows, 1.6 Million viewers watched WandaVision (Monica Rambeau), and 776,000 viewers watched Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan).
The math gets a bit fuzzy, but based on the characters involved and the marketing materials for US moviegoers, The Marvels is trying to appeal to women who like comics AND have watched WandaVision and Ms. Marvel on Disney+ AND like cats.
Without a formal survey, we can’t pin the estimate down to a specific number, but we can guesstimate a range between the lowest indicator (776,000 for Ms. Marvel watchers) and the highest (US women who like comics and cats, 44 Million x 25.4% = 11.1 Million)
According to a NY Times article, citing an EntTelligence report, the average cost of a movie ticket in America in 2022 was $11.75.
That means if everyone who fits the target demographic above bought a movie ticket to see The Marvels, you should expect the American Box office numbers to range between $9.2 million and $130.4 million.
If we generously assume the best-case scenario, that worldwide box office revenue is 1.5x the domestic sales, the worldwide projection for The Marvels falls somewhere around $326 Million.
Does It Make Sense?
The investment into making a film, much like making a comic, only makes sense if you sell more than you spend. How much did The Marvels cost to make?
Per Variety: “this MCU entry cost $220 million to produce and roughly $100 million to promote the film to audiences across the globe.”
That’s $320 Million worldwide.
That also means the cost of the film and the projected sales of the film will barely break even. Of course, this is all guesstimation, so anything could happen if it turns out the film has a hook that gets strong word of mouth or some kind of viral buzz ala Barbie.
But if I were a betting man, the way The Marvels is positioned doesn’t look like a profitable pursuit for Disney and Marvel Studios.
What Can We Learn From This?
If you want to make money, you have to know your audience. If you give the largest overlap of potential customers what they want, at a price they’re willing to pay, you can forecast whether or not your comic is going to be worth the effort.
Is the forecast calculation above perfect? No, not by a long shot, but it’s a start, and in the pursuit of making good comics that sell, a start is better than nothing.
[Editor’s Note: We received a notification from the World Animal Foundation that number of US household who have pets as cats increased from 25.4% to 26% as of their last survey. The figure referenced above has been updated to reflect the revised stat.]
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