- Hello, friends.
The Avengers is the biggest thing in Hollywood,
with the franchise propelling its cast members
to A-list status, if they weren't already there before.
But does that cultural cache
translate into success on other projects?
Eh.
This week on Heat Vision Breakdown,
we examine if movies outside the MCU
starring Marvel's heroes have gotten a bump,
and who is the most successful Avenger of them all.
Honestly, after having to keep in that kind of shape
for a decade, I'd just be taking roles
as a pastry chef or something.
(rock music)
Being a Marvel Studios actor is something of a Catch-22.
On one hand, you're given the biggest platform in the world,
and oh yeah, millions of dollars, but on the other,
you also sign multi-picture deals that monopolize your time,
making it hard to squeeze in other projects on the side.
Despite the demands of being a Marvel superhero,
a lot of the franchise's biggest stars
have managed to still do work outside of the MCU,
with varying levels of success.
So, let's explore the hits, misses, and most importantly,
total Box Office haul of the core Avengers cast
outside of the Marvel Universe,
'cause as we all know, the worth of anyone on camera
is directly related to how much capital they generate
for their corporate overlords.
Give me a raise.
Chris Evans.
Chris Evans remains one of the most beloved members
of the Avengers, thanks in part
to his golden retriever-like charm,
robust Twitter presence, and honestly,
his biceps probably don't hurt, either.
Evans was famously hesitant to join the MCU,
worrying about it monopolizing his time
and taking away his anonymity.
You know, the anonymity of a guy
who had already been in two superhero films.
- This is Dolce.
- Since suiting up as Captain American in 2011,
he arguably has had just two big-screen successes
outside Marvel, the critically acclaimed film Snowpiercer,
and 2017's Gifted, which earned positive reviews
and did well at the Box Office,
earning $43 million on a $6 million budget.
It's called profit.
In 2015, Evans made his directorial debut
with Before We Go, which earned just $37,151
and had the star say of the film,
"I'm okay with making mistakes,
"and I learned from that one."
So, in other words, Evans hasn't been able to do much
since playing Steve Rogers, but that's changing
now that he's retired from the role.
He has Rian Johnson's Knives out coming up in November,
he's top-lining Apple's Defending Jacob miniseries,
and he'll star in Antoine Fuqua's Infinite,
as a guy who can recall his past lives, ooh.
Expect a lot more for Evans coming up.
Worldwide Box Office total outside of the MCU
since joining Marvel?
$129 million, so, less than Avengers: Endgame
made on the Friday that it opened.
(buzzer buzzes)
(cash register dings)
Mark Ruffalo.
Outside of the MCU, Ruffalo has had
the most prestigious career of all the Avengers.
Since first becoming a green rage monster in 2012,
he's won an Emmy, been nominated for two
Supporting Actor Oscars for Foxcatcher and Spotlight,
and been nominated for three Golden Globes.
Unlike his more action-heavy co-stars,
Ruffalo's not a guy expected to carry a big franchise,
and that's actually played to his advantage.
Like Downey, Ruffalo was already a firmly established star
before joining the MCU,
and was even hot off his first Oscar nom
for The Kids Are All Right in 2011,
when he put on the tattered shorts
of the Hulk in the Avengers.
Total Box Office outside of Marvel?
$863 million, but they're mostly
for the Now You See Me movies.
Not everything can be about prestige and awards.
Chris Hemsworth.
Hemsworth has stretched himself
by working with legendary directors like Ron Howard
in would-be awards contenders, like Rush,
that never quite reached the level of cultural significance
they seemed destined for.
He's also worked with iconic director Michael Mann
on the little-remembered Blackhat,
a hacker drama he has since admitted doesn't quite work,
probably because no hacker on Earth
looks anything like Chris Hemsworth, like at all.
On the franchise side, he made two Huntsman movies,
the latter of which he's admitted didn't quite work.
That sounds familiar.
And now he has a Men in Black spinoff
aiming to to spawn a new series.
In recent years,
Hemsworth really seems to have come into his own
by embracing his comedic side,
with a winning turn in the Ghostbusters reboot
that helped prime audiences
for just how funny he could be in Thor: Ragnarok.
Hemsworth is one of the few original Avengers
who seems destined to continue with Marvel,
and if anything, his star is only on the rise.
Worldwide Box Office outside of Marvel?
$1.2 billion.
Robert Downey, Jr.
The main figure in the MCU, Robert Downey, Jr.
has been there since the beginning,
and raked in quite a bit of cash
playing Tony Stark over the years.
The dude made $5 million a day
for 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming.
Even James Holzhauer can't touch that.
That joke will hold up. (laughs)
However, even when he's not Iron Man,
Downey has some formidable Box Office clout.
The same year he debuted in the MCU,
Downey starred as a dude playing a dude
disguised as another dude in Tropic Thunder,
a role which earned him his second Oscar nomination.
The next year, he starred alongside Jamie Foxx
in The Soloist, and launched is other franchise,
Sherlock Holmes, with Jude Law and director Guy Ritchie.
Sherlock proved a success, earning a 2011 sequel,
and an upcoming third entry, slated for 2021.
He's also trying to launch another franchise,
with The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle,
a film that's been delayed and seems somewhat troubled.
While the majority of Downey's resume
in the 2010s is dominated by the MCU,
he did turn in a small role in buddy John Favreau's
2014 gastro-dramedy, Chef,
and a top-billed performance in 2014's The Judge,
with Robert Duvall, which didn't do great.
Worldwide Box Office outside of Marvel?
$1.3 billion.
Way to go, RDJ.
Jeremy Renner.
Renner was an example of prestige casting
when he joined the MCU as Hawkeye
for a cameo in 2011's Thor.
He was fresh off a Best Actor Oscar nomination
for Best Picture winner The Hurt Locker.
Since then, he's had one of the strongest careers
of any of the Avengers.
He was named the heir apparent of multiple franchises,
though none of them really worked out.
He was tipped to have Tom Cruise pass him the torch
with 2011's Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol,
back when no on realized Tom Cruise
is actually an unstoppable cyborg
who would still be death-defying stunts into his late 50s.
The dude is insane.
Renner appeared in Rogue Nation in a small role,
and then just never showed up for last year's Fallout.
Renner also relaunched the Bourne franchise,
only to see Matt Damon return to take back the reins.
And remember 2013's Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters?
I wish I didn't.
Outside of popcorn-friendly franchises,
Renner has appeared in a number of prestige films,
such as Arrival and American Hustle.
He even took time away from being a big-time action hero
to star in the 2018 comedy TAG,
which saw him break both of his arms.
How?
You fought Ultron without a scratch,
but you couldn't handle playing a children's playground game
with John Hamm, Hannibal Buress,
and the dude from New Girl?
Worldwide Box Office outside of Marvel?
$2.4 billion.
Way to go, Hawkeye.
Scarlett Johansson.
ScarJo is one of those actors
who feel like they've never not been famous,
so when she joined the MCU in 2010's Iron Man 2
as super-spy Natasha Romanova,
she was already pretty widely known as a movie star.
In the first five years alone since debuting as Black Widow,
Johansson bought a zoo with Matt Damon,
portrayed legendary actress Janet Leigh,
was a New Jersey socialite dating Joseph Gordon-Levitt,
played a weird alien lady that kills Scottish guys,
voiced a sentient version of Amazon's Alexa
that falls in love with Joaquin Phoenix,
and basically became a femme fatale version
of Bradley Cooper's character in Limitless.
In more recent years,
ScarJo has worked with Oscar winners the Coen Brothers
on Hail, Caesar!, and done voice work
in major money makers like John Favreau's Jungle Book,
and Illumination's Sing,
but she's also been in under-performers,
like the ill-fated comedy Rough Night,
and The Ghost in the Shell adaptation
that bombed at the Box Office.
Worldwide Box Office outside of Marvel?
$2.7 billion.
Holy ScarJoly! (laughs)
Samuel L. Jackson.
Sam Jackson is highest-grossing actor of all time,
thanks to starring in pretty much every blockbuster
of the past 25 years.
Even if you just look at what he's done
since debuting Nick Fury in 2008's Iron Man,
he runs circles around any other actor alive,
even Tom Cruise.
Let's just name a few of those roles
and how much money they made at the Box Office.
All right, we got Django Unchained,
that's $425 million, we got Kong: Skull Island,
that's $566 million, Incredibles 2, that $1.2 billion,
Kingsman is $414 million, Glass is $247 million,
and he was in The Legend of Tarzan
and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children,
and XXX 3, there's a XXX 3?
He made all of those?
The point is, no one outworks Samuel L. Jackson,
so don't even try.
Worldwide Box Office outside of Marvel?
$5 billion!
Yeah.
I would be remiss if I didn't give a shoutout
to Guardians of the Galaxy stars
Chris Pratt and Zoe Saldana.
Zaldana is one of the biggest actresses in the world,
thanks to things like Avatar and the Star Trek franchises,
though for the purposes of this video,
we can't really touch on those,
as no Avatar sequels have come out
since she joined the Guardians,
and two of her three Star Trek roles
also premiered before she became Gamora.
Pratt, however, I can talk about.
And I'm going to.
He's juggling both Marvel and the Jurassic World franchise,
not to mention his voice work in The Lego Movie,
though the first one came out before Guardians 1
hit theaters in August 2014.
Sorry, Chris, doesn't count.
Pratt's worldwide Box Office outside of Marvel?
$3.6 billion.
So, you know, he's doing pretty good.
So, what have we learned?
It can be hard comparing the work of Marvel stars
outside of the MCU, especially as only some of the heroes
have had their own standalone films,
obviously taking up more of the actors' schedules.
But what is undeniable is that being an Avenger
is undoubtedly good for your career
and your overall Box Office bottom line.
Doesn't hurt if your name is Sam Jackson, either.
The end.
(upbeat music)