Tom Rothman, the head of Sony Pictures, shared his analysis on why Marvel films are in decline at the box office.
During a discussion at the American Film Institute with Matthew Belloni, Rothman said, “Never bet against Kevin Feige. He knows what he’s doing. Certainly, they’ve engaged, and you can see it in a course correction. Less television.”
“I think it was really the television and the elaborateness of that interconnection that made you have to be so inside, or else you felt excluded,” he said. “And that was a mandate he given by a prior administration at Disney and he’s a good corporate soldier so he did what he was asked to do.”
“But I think he knows very well that now, to a degree less will be more, and it’ll be very more. Have no worries for Avengers, guys,” he said.
Marvel films peaked at the box office back in 2019 with Avengers: Endgame. The film grossed $858.3 million domestically and did $2.7 billion globally. Since then the box office grosses have significantly declined.
Black Widow, which was released day-and-date to theaters as well as Disney+ did just $183.6 million domestically and only $379.7 million globally. Disney reported that the film grossed $60 million on Disney+ during its opening weekend.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings did $224.5 million domestically and $432.2 globally. Eternals did $164.8 million domestically and just $401.7 million globally.
2022’s Thor: Love and Thunder saw grosses rebound to $343.2 million domestically and $760.9 million globally, but that was nearly a $100 million less than Thor: Ragnarok’s global take of $850.4 million in 2017.
Similarly, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever did $453.8 million domestically and $859.2 million globally. However, Black Panther did $700 million domestically and $1.3 billion globally just five years earlier.
More recent films like Captain America: Brave New World only did $200 million domestically and just $413.6 million globally. Thunderbolts did even worse. It only grossed $190.2 million domestically and just $382.4 million globally.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps did $274.2 million domestically and $520.4 million globally. For comparison the 2005 Fantastic Four film did $154.6 million domestically and a total of $333.1 million globally. That’s without factoring in inflation.
Similar to Rothman’s analysis, Marvel boss Kevin Feige also blamed the company’s focus on television and streaming. Speaking to journalists about his plans for the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s future in July 2025, he emphasized how many more hours of content that company created during its television push, “We produced 50 hours of stories between 2007 and 2019.” However, since Endgame, the company “had well over 100 hours of stories — in half the time. That’s too much.”
Additionally, he claimed the company’s heavy embrace of feminism and wokeness in films like Eternals was a time of “experimentation” and “evolution.”
“I’ve always thought if you take success and don’t experiment with it and don’t risk with it, then it’s not worth it,” he said. “What we also ended up focusing on because of Disney+ was expansion — and it’s that expansion that I think led people to say, ‘It used to be fun, but now do I have to know everything about all of these?’”
He doubled down on this idea that they were just making too many films and TV shows while also admitting the quality suffered, “For the first time ever, quantity trumped quality. We spent 12 years working on the Infinity Saga saying that’s never going to happen to us. We always had more characters than we could possibly make because we weren’t going to make a movie a month. Suddenly, there’s a mandate to make more. And we go, ‘Well, we do have more.’”
Fandom Pulse is reader-supported independent journalism. Paid subscribers get exclusive scoops and investigative reporting daily.
Dive into Jon Del Arroz’s For Steam and Country series, where a plucky 16-year-old farm girl, Zaira von Monocle, inherits her missing father’s legendary airship and is thrust into a high-stakes war against the ruthless Wyranth Empire.
Packed with swashbuckling airship battles, supernatural threats, daring rescues, and clever heroism in a richly imagined steampunk world, this series delivers non-stop action and heart-pounding excitement from the first page.
NEXT: Sony Pictures CEO Tom Rothman Provides Big Update On State Of Spider-Man Spinoff Films
I don't think they get it yet.
Financial beatings will continue until the management improves.