Why Marvel Movies Are So Expensive To Make, According To Kumail Nanjiani

For a long time now, Hollywood's reliance on big franchises with irresponsible budgets has been kneecapping it in the long-run. It's a big problem that seems to have affected studios across the board. Disney spent $300 million on "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny," which ended up with a disappointing box office take to say the least. 2023's "Fast X," meanwhile, is said to have cost $340 million before marketing, almost guaranteeing the film would never make money (which it almost certainly didn't, since it made around $705 million worldwide). Then, there's Marvel Studios, which has been spending egregious amounts on its movies even in the face of dwindling box office receipts.

Though there were signs of trouble prior to the end of Marvel Studios' Phase Three, which culminated in "Avengers: Endgame" in 2019, things really took a turn post-"Endgame," with Marvel Cinematic Universe movies debuting to lower overall box office receipts, which only further highlighted the inflated budgets. Take, 2021's "Eternals," which seemed to mark somewhat of a turning point for the franchise — and not for the better.

"Eternals" was a wildly ambitious but uneven cosmic epic that became the first MCU movie to gain a "rotten" score on Rotten Tomatoes. What's more, the Chloé Zhao-directed film made $402 million at the global box office, which wasn't a full-on disaster but was far from the billion-dollar mark many other big MCU movies hit. It would have been enough to break even, but the film wound up significantly over-budget, costing $272.6 million to produce. When you consider that studios get roughly half of the box office returns then factor in marketing costs, the movie definitely lost money for Disney and Marvel, which like many other studios in the modern age, has been spending exorbitant amounts of money on its movies for quite some time. Things only got worse from there, and yet Marvel Studios seemingly hasn't yet learned its lesson when it comes to these giant budgets. What is costing so much money? It seems "Eternals" star Kumail Nanjiani has some ideas.

Among many questions plaguing Marvel Studios is why on earth they keep spending so much money when MCU movies simply aren't making the profits they once were? In 2023, Marvel released its lowest-grossing MCU movie ever with "The Marvels," which made just $197 million at the box office but cost around $220 million to make. Things haven't gotten much better since then, barring some standout hits like "Deadpool & Wolverine." In 2025, the safe but forgettable "Captain America: Brave New World" had a similar initial budget to "Eternals" at a reported $180 million — though that likely ballooned thanks to drastic reshoots — and similarly to "Eternals," the film made $415 million worldwide. Likewise, the second MCU release of 2025, "Thunderbolts," made just $382 million at the global box office. Its budget? $180 million. What's going on here? Well, in the case of "Brave New World," reshoots pushed the budget ever upward, but otherwise, Kumail Nanjiani has some ideas.

Nanjiani was mostly known for his stand-up comedy but gained significant notoriety (and an Academy Award nomination) for starring in and co-writing "The Big Sick" in 2017. That, coupled with his brilliant performance as Dinesh in HBO's "Silicon Valley," helped Nanjiani ascend to a higher level of stardom, which he cemented when he appeared in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Nanjiani played Kingo in "Eternals," for which he changed his body completely to get the classic superhero physique. A wisecracking Bollywood star who also happens to be an immortal ancient alien, Kingo was one of the better characters in the movie, and it seems Nanjiani had an absolute ball playing the character — not only because it fulfilled some childhood dreams, but because Marvel made him feel like a king while shooting. In the actor's view, that last point might have had something to do with why these movies cost so much money.

In 2025, Kumail Nanjiani appeared on the "We Might Be Drunk" podcast and revealed much about his experience making "Eternals," noting how he was pretty much pampered from day one. "That's what's great about it — the budget is insane," he said. "You're really in the lap of luxury. They give you a driver [who takes] you wherever you want, whenever you want — weekend, day off, whatever it is."

Nanjiani also highlighted that Marvel provided a "nice apartment" for him to live in while shooting, alongside dining options which were, according to the actor, "amazing." Apparently there was also a dedicated member of staff who supplied the actors with meals that met their exact macro and calorie requirements. "They give you five meals a day," he said. "Everybody's meals are different, different quantities [...] they'll adjust it and fix it for you, or, like, on the weekend 'I want to go out and have Indian food.'" Perhaps unsurprisingly then, Nanjiani summed up his comments by noting how wasteful a lot of this stuff seemed:

"You do realize on movie sets how much money is being wasted, and you hear, like, 'This movie was cheap, it was $10 million,' and you're like, '$10 million? So much money! How does it take so much money to make something that looks like s***?' So much money is wasted."

Just how much pampering the cast really contributes to the budgets of MCU movies remains unclear, but the general point about waste surely has something to it. While cast accommodation and lifestyle costs are going to be required no matter what the film might be, Marvel needs all the help it can get to keep budgets low as the MCU struggles to regain the kind of box office dominance it enjoyed for its first decade.