The Profitability of Thor 4: A Note

When Thor 4 came out expectations were high for the film, some thinking that this Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) franchise that tends to play more like a Guardians of the Galaxy movie than an Avengers movie was going to break into a higher tier of moneymaker. This was not wholly unreasonable. after all, each Thor movie had made more than the last, with the process gone far enough that in 2022 terms Thor 3 (Thor: Ragnarok) was a billion dollar hit--its $854 million in late 2017 about $1.025 billion in summer 2022 prices. However, pulling in a mere $761 million Thor 4 actually made less in nominal terms, and a quarter less in real terms (with the fact only partially attributable to Marvel's shutout from China), and that result quite naturally received as a letdown.* Indeed, the suspicion that the movie failed to break even on its theatrical run would seem to be justified by the numbers Deadline published this month--the theatrical run bringing in $350 million, as against the $455 million spent on the production, prints and ads, and overhead and interest, while participations and residuals also had to be paid (these eventually totaling another $57 million).

Of course, there was home entertainment and streaming/TV, which came close to matching the theatrical run's earnings with another $300 million. The result was that Thor 4 still ended up with a respectable profit of $103 million.

Still, it seems worth noting that just as with Black Panther 2 this meant a halving of the profit from the last entry in the series in real terms, Thor 3 having made a profit of $174 million back in 2017 according to the same formula (which worked out to about $209 million at the time Thor 4 came out).

It is not the direction in which Disney-Marvel needed the numbers to move, in either case. Indeed, if the numbers keep moving in this direction, profitability quickly becomes nonexistent. Yet with $100 million more made than what was spent it is no franchise-killer.

* Thor 3 made about $112 million in China--about $135 million in summer 2022 terms, such that even without it, merely matching Thor 3 in the rest of the world the movie should have made about $890 million. Putting it another way, the film's non-Chinese gross dropped about 14 percent from the last Thor movie, in contrast with the increases previously seen.