Disney bought Marvel for $4 billion in 2009, a decade later it's made more than $18 billion at the global box office

Authored by cnbc.com and submitted by Frocharocha

Chris Hemsworth and director Taika Waititi of Marvel Studios' 'Thor: Love and Thunder' at the San Diego Comic-Con International 2019 Marvel Studios Panel in Hall H on July 20, 2019 in San Diego, California.

A decade ago, moviegoers were introduced to Tony Stark.

He was a fast-talking genius, playboy, billionaire, soon-to-be philanthropist played by the comeback kid himself Robert Downey Jr.

Marvel's "Iron Man" arrived in theaters in 2008 just as rival DC's gritty Dark Knight trilogy, directed by Christopher Nolan, was making its bow. It was a near polar opposite to the dark, gloomy story of billionaire Bruce Wayne, aka the masked vigilante Batman.

In its opening weekend, "Iron Man" snared nearly $100 million at the box office, before going on to garner just under $600 million worldwide. At the time, opening weekend ticket sales of "Iron Man" were just short of the first-weekend sales for "Spider-Man," the 2002 blockbuster that held the record for the top non-sequel superhero movie opening.

A year later, Disney made its move. While Marvel had already contracted several films with Paramount and Universal as part of its Marvel Cinematic Universe, CEO Bob Iger closed on a deal to purchase the comic book company for around $4 billion.

"This is perfect from a strategic perspective," Iger said at the time. "This treasure trove of over 5,000 characters offers Disney the ability to do what we do best."

Since releasing its first Disney produced Marvel movie in 2012, the company has earned more than $18.2 billion at the global box office. And it's already on its way to make billions more.

At San Diego Comic-Con on Saturday, Marvel announced its upcoming slate of films and TV shows that expand on the 23 movies already in the MCU.

Disney has produced 16 of those films. Paramount distributed "Iron Man," "Captain America: The First Avenger," "Thor" and "Iron Man 2"; and Universal distributed "The Incredible Hulk" as part of deals that predated Disney's acquisition of Marvel.

More recently, Sony has produced two Spider-Man films — "Homecoming" and "Far From Home" — in partnership with Disney, allowing the character to appear in the MCU.

In total, all of the movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe have made more than $22 billion at the global box office.

To be sure, these box office numbers do not include the cost of production or marketing costs. They also don't count the billions in merchandising that Disney has made over the last decade.

MrVernonDursley on July 21st, 2019 at 21:37 UTC »

It was a pretty ballsy purchase, at least in terms of the movies. The MCU had 2 movies at the time, one of which was The Incredible Hulk.

shy247er on July 21st, 2019 at 20:09 UTC »

It's shocking how cheap their purchases of Marvel and Star Wars were.

WriteScottWrite on July 21st, 2019 at 20:06 UTC »

And probably double that in toy and apparel sales alone.