If you want an inside peek at how the Hollywood spin machine works then look no further than what’s happening with “Captain America: Brave New World.”
The latest Marvel blockbuster is one of the worst reviewed MCU movies, has had abysmal audience scores, and its 3-day $88M opening is surely not anything to write home about. Vulture’s recent expose, which reported on disastrous test screenings prompting 22 days of reshoots and the last-minute addition of a new villain, only muddied the waters further.
Somehow, Disney has managed to use the full force of its power to spin this disaster into some kind of win. THR calls its weekend performance “bullish,” CBM says it “exceeded expectations,” Variety describes the numbers as “heroic,” and IndieWire proclaims it has “overcome” that B- CinemaScore.
There’s an answer to the madness, and it’s not pretty. Here’s the thing, based on the reporting, it seems as though ”sources,” possibly via Disney, have told Deadline, Variety and THR that ‘Brave New World’ had a $180M budget, and these trades just decided to take their word for it and carry the water.
Now, of course ‘Brave New World’ didn’t cost $180M. That’s simply too silly to believe. The actual budget was more than double that. It’s not just that, a few months ago, I had reported the costs on the film to have arisen in the $350M mark, but other journalists have now paralleled what I had originally written.
Joanna Robinson and Dave Gonzalez who probably wrote the most extensive and essential MCU book out there (“MCU: The Rise of Marvel Studios”) and have some of most well-sourced and legit Marvel sources, are not willing to be part of Disney’s ‘Brave New World’ spin.
Robinson and Gonzalez have been told that overruns and reshoots drove the ‘Brave New World’ budget to $380M. With marketing costs added in, it’ll basically be impossible for the film to turn in a profit.
They’ve mentioned this a few times on their podcast leading up to the release of ‘Brave New World.’ So, Disney can spin this all they want, but the true budget will eventually come out, and so will their losses on this movie.