The reported budget for The Marvels has been revealed, and, if accurate, it would tie the Captain Marvel sequel with the first two Ant-Man films as Marvel Studios' cheapest movie of all time.
In Vanity Fair's profile on director Nia DaCosta, it's claimed that the budget for The Marvels is a very modest $130 million. For some context, Marvel Studios' other 2023 big-screen releases, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, cost a reported $200 million and $250 million, respectively.
Likely as a response to Quantumania underperforming at the box office, Disney's Bob Iger recently indicated that Marvel would be taking a more cost-effective approach, and this may be the first sign that Kevin Feige and co. have begun to reduce the scale of the more standalone MCU adventures.
A recent report claimed that The Marvels will likely clock in at around 1 hour, 38 minutes (1 hour, 33 minutes minus credits). The current shortest Marvel Studios movies are The Incredible Hulk and Thor: The Dark World, which both run for 1 hour, 52 minutes, so, if this is accurate, it would also mark The Marvels as the shortest entry in the franchise by some margin.
Despite the relatively inexpensive price tag, The Marvels will be the highest-budget movie ever directed by a Black woman, surpassing Ava DuVernay’s A Wrinkle In Time. During the interview, DaCosta admitted to having some reservations about signing on, and reached out to previous MCU filmmakers to ask their advice.
“Are they going to kill me and destroy my soul? Is Kevin Feige a bad man?” she joked. “And they were like, ‘No, he’s just a good guy who was a nerd.’”
DaCosta also revealed that she would text Shang-Chi director Destin Daniel Cretton on tough shoot days when she was feeling particularly "overwhelmed."
“Sometimes you’d be in a scene and you’d be like, ‘What the hell does any of this shit mean?’ Or an actor’s looking at some crazy thing happening in space, and they’re [actually] looking at a blue X. There were obviously hard days, and days where you’re like, ‘This just isn’t working.’”
"In Marvel Studios’ The Marvels, Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel has reclaimed her identity from the tyrannical Kree and taken revenge on the Supreme Intelligence. But unintended consequences see Carol shouldering the burden of a destabilized universe. When her duties send her to an anomalous wormhole linked to a Kree revolutionary, her powers become entangled with that of Jersey City super-fan Kamala Khan, aka Ms. Marvel, and Carol’s estranged niece, now S.A.B.E.R. astronaut Captain Monica Rambeau. Together, this unlikely trio must team up and learn to work in concert to save the universe as The Marvels.”
The film also stars Zawe Ashton and Park Seo-joon. Nia DaCosta directs, and Kevin Feige is the producer. Louis D’Esposito, Victoria Alonso, Mary Livanos and Matthew Jenkins serve as executive producers. The screenplay is by Megan McDonnell, Nia DaCosta, Elissa Karasik and Zeb Wells.