Some assembly may still be required…
We all know that the Infinity War sequel will be arriving in a year or so, and outside of that all that Disney and Marvel have confirmed so far are Ant-Man & The Wasp, Captain Marvel, the Spider-Man: Homecoming sequel and Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol.3.
Anything else might give the game away as to who will still be standing once the Infinity War is done and dusted.
There is an air of finality about the whole thing – that next April will be the last time we’ll be seeing The Avengers properly assemble – but it turns out, that may not be the case.
Disney CEO Robert Iger told investors on Tuesday (via Entertainment Weekly): “We meet on a regular basis with our Marvel team, and we’ve plotted out Marvel movies that will take us well into the next decade. I’m guessing we will try our hand at what I’ll call a new franchise beyond Avengers, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you won’t see more Avengers down the road.”
“Given the popularity of the characters and given the popularity of the franchise, I don’t think people should conclude there will never be another Avengers movie.”
Disney’s CFO Christine McCarthy followed that up with: “I think the outstanding performance is nothing short of stellar, [but] there is one difference in [Infinity War], that’s the size of the cast… Because of the size of the cast involved and the cost of the movie, the scale, the magnitude, while this film is going to be very profitable, it may not be on the same return level as some of the other films, because of the sheer scale of it.”
Which is fair.
The actual budget for Avengers: Infinity War and the untitled sequel hasn’t been officially announced, but the estimates have ranged between $250 million each to just shy of $1 billion (with a b) combined.
So far, after just eleven days in cinemas, Infinity War has already earned $1.2 billion at the box office, and will most likely break the $2 billion barrier before all is said is done.
So while the profits are definitely rolling in, the profit margin is much smaller than a movie that would’ve cost a lot less.