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Deadline’s Most Valuable Blockbuster tournament took a hiatus during the pandemic as movie theaters closed for the majority of 2020-2021 and theatrical day-and-date titles on both the big screen and studios’ respective streaming platforms became more prevalent. Coming back from that brink, the studios have largely returned to their theatrical release models and the downstream monies they can bring. Not to mention their power in launching IPs around the world with big global marketing campaigns. When it comes to evaluating the financial performance of top movies, it isn’t about what a film grosses at the box office. The true tale is told when production budgets, P&A, talent participations and other costs collide with box office grosses, and ancillary revenues from VOD to DVD and TV. To get close to that mysterious end of the equation, Deadline is repeating our Most Valuable Blockbuster tournament for 2022, using data culled by seasoned and trusted sources.
THE FILM
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Disney/Marvel Studios
After Scott Derrickson, the director and co-writer of the first Doctor Strange, exited the sequel over creative differences, Sam Raimi stepped in. Raimi arguably started the millennium craze for superhero movies with Sony’s Spider-Man back in 2002 — the first movie at the domestic box office to open to north of $100 million in a given weekend with $114.8M. Doctor Strange 2 repped the filmmaker’s return to Marvel after the original Sony Spider-Man trilogy. However, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was a hodgepodge: part season finale to Disney+’s WandaVision, part sequel to 2016’s Doctor Strange, and part attempt to bring more horror elements to the franchise (seriously, how scared were you when you saw it?). Coming in the wake of Marvel Studios’ ultimate time-twisting title, Spider-Man: No Way Home (the seventh highest-grossing movie of all time at $1.92 billion), which also starred Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange, this sequel felt anticlimactic, not to mention disconnected. Fans weren’t feeling it for Doctor Strange 2 and gave it a B+ CinemaScore in what is a new pandemic era of B’s for Marvel fare (including Eternals’ B, Black Widow‘s B-, Thor: Love & Thunder‘s B+ and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania‘s B). There’s been a lot of pressure on Disney’s No. 1 film label to deliver between obligations to the big screen and Disney+, and the question is whether not just VFX wise but also development-wise, the product was rushed far too much than these titles were in pre-Covid times. Doctor Strange 2 was previously scheduled to open on March 25, 2022, but it was decided in October 2021 that the sequel was worthy enough to fire off summer 2022 in the traditional Marvel slot, that being the first weekend of May.
THE BOX SCORE
THE BOTTOM LINE
Despite posting one of the biggest second-weekend drops for a Marvel Cinematic Universe title (-67% at the domestic box office) and upset fans, Doctor Strange 2, still profited with $284M after all ancillaries. Doctor Strange 2 posted the biggest global ($452M) and domestic ($187.4M) opening at the box office last year, and was one of only five movies to exceed $900M in global ticket sales. Among all MCU worldwide openings, Doctor Strange 2 ranked fourth and was also the second best of the Covid era after Spider-Man: No Way Home‘s $600.5M WW start. The pic misses the standard Marvel $1 billion mark at the global box office sans a China release (given that country’s continued boycott of many Hollywood pics last summer), not to mention no Russia theatrical release (due to studios’ stand against the country and its war with Ukraine). The sequel arrived on Disney+ 48 days after its theatrical release, one of the shorter windows for an MCU title since the Black Widow day-and-date controversy though still generous to exhibition. By that point in time, Doctor Strange 2 had made 99% of its $411.3M domestic take. Despite the lackluster fan reception, Doctor Strange 2 moneywise didn’t really get warped in the end.
THE BOX SCORE