As if Marvel Studios’ production problems with Blade weren’t bad enough, a supposed insider is reporting that, thanks to its recent round of reshoots, the budget for Captain America: Brave New World has gotten absolutely out of control.
Despite facing down such threats as Hydra, the Flag-Smashers, and even Thanos, Sam Wilson’s biggest challenge yet has proven to be getting his debut solo film off the ground.
Announced immediately following the series finale of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, the fourth Captain America film was originally slated for release on May 3rd, 2024.
However, thanks to a combination of the 2023 Hollywood guild strikes and Marvel reshuffling their entire production slate later that year, the film was eventually delayed to its current release date of February 14th, 2024.
Like all movies, Brave New World was allotted a brief period following its principal photography to conduct reshoots, the filming of which started in May 2024 and lasted roughly 22 days.
But rather than a simple and standard round of additional photography, the reported widespread rejection of the film’s initial cut by test audiences instead resulted in these reshoots being used to make a number of massive changes to the overall film, including the complete removal of a previously filmed Serpent Society plot line (starring WWE star Seth Rollins), the introduction of a new and as-of-yet-unidentified villain played by Breaking Bad star Giancarlo Esposito, and the addition of more action scenes.
Given how labor-intensive they seemed, many speculated that these reshoots would end up costing Marvel Studios far more than they were looking to spend, especially in light of Disney’s overall goal of getting a better handle on their falling finances.
Yet, at the end of May 2024, a purported Marvel Studios insider assured The Hollywood Reporter‘s Borys Kit that, regardless of the film’s extensive restructuring, Brave New World‘s final price tag would come be “significantly less” than the reported $270 million it cost to make The Marvels.
Unfortunately for Marvel, it now seems this claim may have been nothing more than either misinformed optimism or blatant PR fluff.
Relaying information allegedly relayed to him by “a contact deeply [imbedded] in the current Brave New World reshoots, World of Reel’s Jordan Ruimy reports that on top of an already confirmed budget of $275 million, these reshoots are said to cost Disney/Marvel anywhere between $75-100 million.”
To this end, Ruimy’s contact opined, ”It’s like they’re shooting a brand new movie.”
Should this figure turn out to be the film’s actual budget, the standard ‘true budget’ equation of ‘double the reported number’ suggests the next Captain America film will need to make anywhere in the range of $700 – $750 million dollars in order to even think of breaking even.
In light of Marvel Studios’ recent string of failures, all one can say in response to this news is: Good luck.
