Jason is an award-winning journalist whose writing career dates back to when he developed the ability to use a crayon. He, most notably, worked previously as a "professional fan," as he likes to call it, at CinemaBlend, for which he wrote about anything and everything under the pop culture umbrella... especially Batman. His passion for the art of cinema began even earlier, stemming from repeat viewings of The Wizard of Oz.
This initially led him to pursue a career in filmmaking -- and even work briefly in the industry as an extra in the straight-to-video family film, Alice Upside Down -- before deciding that his talents would be better served discussing and showing appreciation for the various forms of entertainment he is passionate about.
For years, the Marvel Cinematic Universe was a blockbuster franchise consistently recognized as a sure bet for box office gold. However, things have changed for the shared universe of superhero stories more recently.
According to The Numbers, Marvel Studios has raked in its lowest annual profits at the box office in years. Based on its current recorded earnings for 2025, the worldwide total is $1,316,549,133.
The profit is a summation of the studio's worldwide box office totals for 2025, which boast some of the MCU's lowest-grossing movies yet. The critically divisive Captain America: Brave New World took in a seemingly decent but comparatively disappointing $413.6 million, the more widely admired Thunderbolts* experienced a dip with $382.4 million and the MCU's champion this year, with a mere $520.5 million, was The Fantastic Four: First Steps.
$1.3 billion may seem like a lot of money on its own, but it is the smallest global amount yet in an ongoing pattern of dwindling box office returns for the MCU. While the studio may have broken $1 billion this year, it was consistently raking in more than double to quadruple that amount between 2017 and 2022 before the totals began shrinking smaller and smaller.
To put things even more into perspective, 2025's earnings are Marvel's lowest since 2011, which was the last time the studio did not earn more than $1 billion. Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger took in a combined total of just $819.9 million, which is more than Iron Man 2's $621.2 million from the previous year, but less than Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk's $850.5 million.
Luckily, Marvel would outdo itself in 2012, which was the first year to see the studio take home an annual profit of more than $1 billion. Astonishingly, its sole release that year was the acclaimed crossover epic, The Avengers. However, it nearly saw the reverse of that outcome between 2024 and 2025.
Deadpool & Wolverine Raked In More Than All 2025 MCU Releases
Image via Marvel Studios / Courtesy of Everett CollectionMarvel Studios can at least say that it has consistently raked in more than $1 billion in global box office grossings from 2023 to now. However, the way it kept itself above that margin in 2024 is astonishing.
The only MCU movie released to theaters that year was director Shawn Levy's multiverse-spanning crossover event, Deadpool & Wolverine, which achieved a box office milestone for the franchise. The MCU debut of both Ryan Reynolds' Merc with a Mouth and Hugh Jackman's X-Men member raked in more than $1.3 billion worldwide.
At the time, these numbers inspired newfound hope for the franchise, which had been struggling to reach the same highs that it previously held proudly, both commercially and critically. In fact, there are still some people who believe Deadpool & Wolverine is among the most unwatchable comic book movies ever made despite its success.
The main point, however, is that this single film made more than all three of Marvel Studios' theatrical releases in 2025 combined, and by a difference of roughly $22 million. That is quite disappointing to know, to say the least.
In 2026, Marvel is bringing forth the long-awaited return of Tom Holland as Peter Parker in Spider-Man: Brand New Day and, in Dec. of that year, the even more highly anticipated Avengers: Doomsday, in which former Iron Man actor Robert Downey Jr. stars as Doctor Doom, alongside returning MCU veterans and Fox-era X-Men stars. To say that these two flicks have good chances at the box office is an understatement, but as always, only time will tell.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is set to swing into theaters on July 31, 2026.
Character(s) Iron Man, Captain America, The Hulk, Ms. Marvel, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Thor, Loki, Captain Marvel, Falcon, Black Panther, Monica Rambeau, Scarlet Witch
English (US) · 