Disney expects last year’s Marvel superhero film Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania to go over budget after spending £131. 9 million (£106. 1 million) on post-production in 2022, which would bring its total prices to £326. 6. million (£262. 6 million).
The effects-rich film is the third installment in the Ant-Man series and stars Paul Rudd as the eponymous hero who can shrink on command thanks to a suit powered by the mysterious Pym particles. He joins Oscar winners Michael Douglas and Michelle. Pfeiffer to fend off a time-traveling conquistador named Kang, played by the disgraced Jonathan Majors, who narrowly avoided prison time earlier this month after being convicted of assaulting his ex-girlfriend.
The film’s name references the microscopic quantum realm that acts as a portal to other time periods and resembles the canopy of an ’80s rock album. Lightning from violet clouds strikes ruined rock forts situated in vast deserts that are home to a variety of aliens, adding one made of jelly and others with blank screens as faces.
Most of the film took place at Quantum Realm, which increased the post-production workload after filming wrapped in November 2021. Special Effects Companies, Industrial Light
Although it’s hard to distinguish it from the movie, Quantumania was made in the UK and had a magical twist on its finances.
Studios filming in the UK take advantage of their Audiovisual Expense Credit, which allows them to reimburse up to 25. 5% of the money they spend in the country in cash.
Earlier this year, the UK government increased the rebate limit through 0. 5 percent issuances against festivals in other countries offering similar schemes. This has helped make the UK a dream country for filmmakers and, according to the British Film Institute, foreign studios contributed. about 77% of the $1. 8 billion spent on cinema in the country last year. However, there is a trick to the refund.
Movie budgets are a closely guarded secret, as studios tend to absorb the cost of each film into their overhead and not detail the cost of each one. Films shot in the UK are an exception to this rule.
To be eligible for the refund, displays will need to pass an issue check based on points such as the number of UK production team members and the number of post-production paintings being made in the UK. In addition, at least 10 percent of the production fundamental prices will have to be similar to UK operations and to prove this to the government, studios have set up separate corporations to make each film.
These corporations are guilty of everything from pre-production to delivery of the film to payment for the finished film. Above all, they have to record monetary statements that show everything from staffing and salaries to money refunds and even the total. Movie prices.
Detective work is required to obtain the financial statements, as corporations have code names to prevent them from attracting the attention of enthusiasts when they record permits to film on location. The Disney subsidiary behind Quantumania is called Pym Productions III in a nod to the Pym debris that forces the Ant-Man lawsuit. Its latest financial statements were filed in December and cover the fiscal year ending December 31, 2022, just over a month before the film’s release.
The documents reveal prices of $326. 6 million, 63. 3% more than Variety’s estimate that Quantumania had a “$200 million production budget. “
It’s also higher than Disney’s own projections, as financial statements reveal that “by the end of the year, cost was expected to exceed production budget. “This is a marked departure from last year’s outlook, which indicated that the pandemic had “a limited effect on the business. As a result, additional costs have been incurred, but the company still continues to complete production within its boundaries. Agreed production schedule and within agreed budgets.
The film is an example of Disney’s rampant spending in the pandemic era, when the value of the media giant’s inventory was at an all-time high. As the pandemic receded, consumers had to bear the cost, so the strings were pulled out of the bag and the value of Disney’s inventory plummeted. led Disney to oust its chief executive Bob Chapek in November 2022 and replace him with his predecessor Bob Iger.
One of Pym Productions III’s biggest expenses was the $20. 9 million (£16. 8 million) spent on production staff, which peaked at 226 people, without even adding freelancers or transient staff who make up the bulk of the crew.
Filming in the UK not only creates jobs for locals, but also generates expenses for security companies, equipment rental and special effects. This explains why the U. K. government gives such generous tax incentives to studios to film there and documents reveal that Quantumania earned a total refund of $50. 6 million (£40. 7 million), bringing Disney’s net spending on the film to $276 million. Its box office failed to cover this cost.
Critically rated Quantumania is just the moment out of 32 Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) films to be rated “Rotten” through review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Although the film achieved an audience score of 82%, only 46% of critics were positive about it. , with a consensus that its visual effects are not up to the task.
Some compare the virtual appearance of one of its villains to a character from the 2003 children’s film Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over. This is attributed to the overworked visual effects staff who had to deal with Marvel’s massive portfolio of videos and streaming shows. Disenchantment was a recurring theme early last year and shaped the backdrop for the March firing of Marvel’s president of physical production and post-production, visual effects and animation, Victoria Alonso.
Quantumania’s special effects have been ridiculed © in 2022 MARVEL.
This follows the disastrous debut of Quantumania, which grossed $476. 1 million according to box office industry analyst Mojo. This is a lower figure than almost any other Marvel movie and netted Disney about $238 million, with studios typically receiving 50% of box office revenue, with theaters keeping the rest. That’s $38 million less than Disney’s net spending on the film, though it excludes DVD and Blu-Ray sales, as well as licensing and merchandising. However, this also excludes marketing prices that exceed those ancillary profit streams.
While Quantumania posted a $38 million loss in box office earnings, Marvel team’s films Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame made $1. 2 billion in profits, as we revealed. This makes them the very definition of the pillars of the MCU: big-budget movies. that generate enough profits to compensate the studio for its less successful productions.
The Ant-Man series started out very differently. The first installment in 2015 had the perfect balance of humor, tension, and action to make believable a movie about a hero with the strength to cringe. Unlike Quantumania, it takes place in the genuine global world. of San Francisco and lacked exaggerated effects. Surprisingly, both films had the same director, Peyton Reed, who used the former to prove that he was a master of giant sets and intimate scenes that placed his production far above its rivals. .
Director Peyton Reed on the set of Quantumania with Paul Rudd
Instead of being a billionaire, a god, or a scientist like his fellow Avengers, Ant-Man is portrayed as a reformed thief who faces real-life disorders like locating a task and paying his daughter’s alimony to his ex-wife. This humanizes the character who, contrary to fashion, does not seduce his ex-wife in a satisfied and sweet ending.
Reed’s discussion is peppered with humor and flows naturally into a Rudd-inspired performance. Douglas plays a retired hero and gives the role a seriousness that highlights the laid-back attitude of Rudd’s character, making him even more approachable.
These ingredients are painstakingly combined through Reed and complemented by striking special effects by ILM and music by Canadian composer Christophe Beck that evokes the tension of the film until a high-tech flight in the finale. It grossed $519. 3 million while its sequel, Ant-Man and the Wasp, jumped on the fashion bandwagon in the run-up to 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, pushing its box office to $622. 7 million. That makes Quantumania’s $476. 1 million gain an even less satisfying ending.
The length of the Ant-Man franchise is now dubious following reports that a fourth film was put on hold, as well as the sequels to Eternals and The Marvels, which were big-budget disappointments, as we reported.
Even worse, Majors is tipped as the next main villain in the Avengers franchise, raising questions about the future of Marvel’s biggest revenue stream. Now more than ever, the studio wants the firepower of some of its characters.