5 Reasons Why Marvel Will Lose Big On Captain America: Civil War

4. The Expense

Not only is it a Captain America movie, it's a Captain America movie with an Avengers budget. Considering the scope of the film, the cast (Robert Downey Jr. alone is set to make around $40 million for the film, before back end points), and the inevitable marketing avalanche, Marvel/Disney can expect to rack up costs similar to that of Age of Ultron. For those keeping track, that film had a budget of approximately $250 million. At this point, other cast members are likely earning bigger paydays too, which only bloats the bill. Consider Cap himself: Chris Evans made $300,000 for his role in Captain America: The First Avenger. Salary for Age of Ultron? Over $7 million. Chris Hemsworth jumped from a $200,000 paycheck in Thor to over $5 million in Age of Ultron. The trend is consistent among the primary cast members. Though it's tough to find firm numbers, in just looking at pay for the six main Avengers themselves, the salary difference between the first and second Avengers films is around $7 million. So, just to keep score, if the Civil War budget is about the same as Age of Ultron ($250 million), around $112 million of that would be spent just paying those six Avengers. That leaves around $138 million for everything else. While that would cover the bill for about 100 Kevin Smith movies, that cash goes pretty quickly on a huge Marvel film. Odds are, this one will run closer to $300 million or more...roughly the Gross Domestic Product of Micronesia.