Captain America 4's (First) and Second Weekend--and the Revelations About "the Budget": Some Thoughts

As of the time of this writing we have seen the box office gross for Captain America in not just the first but the second weekend of its release. The movie's opening was within the range of common expectation, but unspectacular--some $89 million for the Friday-to-Sunday period, and then $100 million when we added in the subsequent Monday.

Compare that to what Ant-Man 3 took in on the first three days of its release, and the four day weekend as a whole exactly two years earlier--some $106 million over the first three days, and $120 million over the first four. Adjusting for inflation Captain America's grosses were, for both periods, down about a fifth from what that movie did, with all that means for the film up to that point, even though one would conventionally expect more people to come out for Captain America than for Scott Lang.

However, an opening weekend tells us only so much. Even a weak opening may be redeemed by good week-to-week holds--and this was where Ant-Man 3 really suffered. The movie's gross fell 70 percent from the first weekend to the second--a number generally recognized as terrible, and which did indeed prove a sign of things to come, with the movie ultimately barely doubling the gross of its first three days over its entire run (instead of multiplying it by two-and-a-half or even three times in the way so many Marvel movies have done).

And as it happened, in spite of a less than wholly enthusiastic audience response there was some expectation that Captain America 4 would do better, with the folks at Boxoffice Pro anticipating a drop of just 50-60 percent, and in the process a gross of $37-$44 million.

Alas, the sub-Ant Man 3 gross has been followed by a weekend-on-weekend fall in the take about as bad as Ant-Man's, the current report of a $28 million gross working out to a 68 percent fall. It also works out to a ten day take of $141 million--which, again, is about a fifth lower than Ant-Man's inflation-adjusted ten day gross (the $177 million its $167 million would be in today's dollars).

It therefore does not seem unreasonable to anticipate Captain America following an Ant-Man 3-like trajectory from an initial take lower than Ant-Man's, leaving the movie one-fifth down from Ant-Man's final gross. Some $225-$230 million in today's terms, think a finish for Captain America in the North American market of about $180 million. Even should the film do a little better--should it, by grace of better holds, prove to have Guardians of the Galaxy 2-like legs, for example--it would still only match Ant-Man 3, not best it. Meanwhile there seems little chance of rescue by the international market, which may not do more than match the North American gross.

The result is that the gross of $400-$500 million, which I suggested as the likely range for the film's global gross last month, seems eminently plausible.

Still, in considering the consequences of the movie's gross for Marvel's bottom line, one should note that even as these have fallen so has the report of the film's budget (?!). In 2024 the press for the film held that the budget for the production (the actual making of the movie) was $350 million, or even more, which was what I went with in my initial discussion of the film. In late January, however, it became commonplace to say that this was a gross overstatement, that the film really cost just a little over half that, some $180 million--a claim that profoundly changes the possibility of the movie turning a profit, or at least getting to the break-even point, if true. But is it? Most of the press has passed on the word uncritically. However, some are skeptical (World of Reel's Jordan Ruimy, citing the authoritative reports of Joanna Robinson and Dave Gonzalez, calls the lower figure "too silly to believe"), while the imprecision of the discussion leaves at least some room for reconciling the different figures. (For example, consider the distinction drawn by Deadline where it presents "production" and "interest and overhead" on separate lines, even though the latter are undeniably part of the bill, all as it is far from impossible that an initially intended $180 million production's cost exploded during the much-talked about reshoots.) Moreover, Marvel has had a history of flat-out underreporting its outlays for movies, and then having the facts given away by, for example, the documentation entailed in its claiming government subsidy for the production (as seen on many occasions when it held out its hand for a rebate from the United Kingdom). Perhaps we will see such a revelation down the road in the case of this film, perhaps not, and should it really prove to be a $180 million movie, and the backers not spent too much on promotion and the rest, the movie would still have some chance of at least breaking even with the help of the post-theatrical revenue streams.

Whether the gross is very promising for the subsequent Marvel movies lining up for their chance at the box office, however, is another matter entirely.