Despite $1.338 Billion Gross, New Report Questions Deadpool & Wolverine Profitability

Disney’s huge hit Deadpool & Wolverine earned more than a billion dollars worldwide, but new financial details suggest the profit was much smaller than most fans would guess. The information comes from official company filings in the United Kingdom and reporting from the London Standard.

Even though the movie was a major box-office success, Disney confirmed that its spending went far beyond the original plan.

The studio said its final costs exceeded the production budget. The filings show that Disney spent more than $533 million making the film, and this number rose in part because the 2023 writers’ and actors’ strikes disrupted production. Since the film was shot mostly in the U.K., Disney had to file public financial records there, and that is how the details became known, according to Forbes.

The studio did get money back from the government. Because of the U.K.’s tax rules for film production, Disney received about $104.7 million in tax credits. After this reimbursement, the studio’s net cost was about $429 million.

For Disney, this spending wasn’t only about the movie itself. The company has repeatedly said that its production work in the U.K. brings business to local companies that handle things like equipment, security, transport and catering.

Even though the movie earned around $1.34 billion worldwide, Disney did not keep all of that money. Box office revenue is split between theaters and the studio. Industry consultant Stephen Follows did a large study in 2014 and found that studios say theaters keep around 49 percent of ticket sales. That suggests Disney received about $670 million from the movie’s theatrical run.

If you compare the studio’s share of $670 million with its net cost of $429 million, the film appears to have made around $241 million from theaters alone. But this number does not show the full picture.

Disney has pointed out that movies make money in other ways, such as home release and merchandise. As the company said last year, “there will be other income generated by the production (such as DVD/Blu Ray sales, merchandising, etc.). It’s not reflecting a true account of whether the film was overall profitable.”

At the same time, movies also have big marketing bills that the public does not see. Disney doesn’t say how much it spends on marketing each film, but analysts at That Park Place believe that a global campaign as intense as Deadpool & Wolverine could cost more than $200 million. When a marketing bill that large is added to the production cost, the profit from the box office becomes much smaller.

Other income, like merchandise and streaming, is harder to track. A lot of Deadpool and Wolverine merchandise uses the Marvel brand name instead of the movie’s name, so it’s unclear how much of that money can be counted as revenue from this specific film. Streaming is also difficult to measure because subscribers pay monthly and don’t buy each movie separately.

As the movie gained attention, it also sparked pushback from drug prevention advocates. The film features adult humor, graphic violence and jokes about drugs.

Sarah Brighton from Hope UK said the humor could influence younger people, explaining that “associating drug references, however obliquely, with humor and cool ‘in jokes’, unwittingly makes drug use seem exciting and attractive to younger viewers.”

Disney is in a strange position because the company promotes these characters in family-friendly spaces like theme parks and cruise ships.

At the same time, Deadpool & Wolverine is their first R-rated entry in the franchise since buying 20th Century Fox. Before the sale, the first two Deadpool films were known for their edgy tone. Disney used the same approach here to bring back adult audiences who felt the newer MCU films were too focused on kids.

The debate around adult themes in superhero films is not new. Marvel itself dealt with it decades ago. In 1971, Stan Lee wrote a Spider-Man story about drug abuse after being asked by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. The Comics Code Authority at the time refused to approve it because of its drug rule, but Marvel printed it anyway. Since then, drug references in entertainment have become far more common.

The big question is whether the movie was a major profit win. And based on the numbers revealed, the answer is more complicated than many assumed. The film brought in huge money, but between massive production spending, high marketing costs, strike delays, theaters keeping about half of the ticket sales and unclear extra revenue from merchandise and streaming, the final profit was likely much lower than fans expected.

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