The MCU Movie That Made The Least Money In Theaters
Whenever Marvel Studios puts out a new film, it's understood that it's going to absolutely smash the box office. Some of the highest-grossing films in the world belong to the MCU catalog with Avengers: Endgame ($2.797 billion), Avengers: Infinity War ($2.048 billion), The Avengers ($1.518 billion), Avengers: Age of Ultron ($1.402 billion), and Black Panther ($1.347 billion) being Marvel Studios' highest performers.
Of course, when MCU movies first began dropping in 2008, the box office numbers weren't as high, or even close. Iron Man, the first film to kick off the MCU, made over $585.7 million worldwide, while Thor earned $449.3 million, and Captain America: The First Avenger brought in $370.6 million. The three introductory films are in the bottom five performers of the MCU, along with 2015's Ant-Man ($519.3 million), but none of them are the worst when it comes to the studio's box office numbers.
The Incredible Hulk was an incredible disappointment
Easily one of the most forgotten MCU films, 2008's The Incredible Hulk tanked in the box office as well. The movie earned just $264.8 million worldwide, or $100 million less than the second-poorest performer, the aforementioned Captain America: The First Avenger. The Edward Norton-led film did slightly better overseas, bringing in $134.8 million internationally, which just beat out its $129.9 million domestic number.
It's not just the MCU's Hulk movie that didn't perform well in theaters, as an earlier film surrounding the character did just as poorly. 2003's Hulk starring Eric Bana earned slightly less with $245.3 million worldwide, split almost evenly between domestic and international earnings, according to Box Office Mojo.
Stan Lee, co-creator of the Hulk, admitted to Rolling Stone in 2015 that he felt the Hulk films just didn't work because the movies made him into something he wasn't. "Well, my own feeling is that in the first two, they made him too powerful," Lee admitted. "I never conceived of him that way, and I didn't think it was necessary for him to be that big. I thought he could've been seven and a half feet tall. That's quite enough."