17 years after its release, I still can’t believe how the box office of theMCU’s second movie compares up withIron Man. Close to two decades after the MCU began, the franchise has resulted inseveral superhero movies with a box office of over a billion dollars- withAvengers: Endgamebeing one of the most financially successful films of all time. As such, even after some recent lower financial results have madeupcoming MCU moviesseem less like guaranteed wins, the franchise has still grown to be one of the biggest on-screen media empires of the modern day.
Though it’s easy to associatethe MCU timelineprimairly with some relatively uncomplicated box office successes - particularly when looking back at the prior Multiverse Saga now post-Endgame- this isn’t the case for all of the franchise. Indeed, while Marvel’s movie empire is considerable, it’s one that’s had its highs and lows throughout, both critically and commercially, and this can best be exemplified in the early days of the franchise by comparing the box offices of its first two movies, despite these two releases only being but a few months apart in terms of their real-world debuts.
Iron Man’s Box Office Set A High Initial Bar For The MCU
As the first movie of the MCU,Iron Manestablished the critical and financial potential of the franchise, laying the foundations for the expansive interconnected universe that would spring up as time continued. Based on statistics fromThe NumbersandBox Office Mojo, the movie made most of its budget back in its domestic opening weekend, and then went on make considerably more back in the coming weeks, helping show what a superhero movie that resonated with audiences could look like.
This led toa worldwide box office fromIron Man’s 2008 release that came in at $584-585 million- something that theCPI Inflation Trackerplaces as being worth around $861 million today. Interestingly, this putsIron Man’s overall box office above several more recently released MCU movies, including the first and thirdAnt-Manmovies,Thor, andCaptain America: The First Avenger, despite the latter two movies releasing in the same Phase 1 time period asIron Manitself.
While this doesn’t feel all that surprising in a modern era whereIron Manpaved the way for a superhero movie franchise that would garner billions of dollars, it’s certainly still a substantial benchmark to consider for the franchise’s first movie - especially since, in terms ofdomestic box office,Iron Manwas 2008’s second most successful movie, behind the similarly genre-definingThe Dark Knight. However, this box office precedent wasn’t followed up on by the franchise’s next installment, setting up a trickier path for the Marvel hero who starred in it.
The Incredible Hulk Made Considerably Less Than The First Iron Man
WhereIron Manmade its budget back in its domestic opening weekend,The Incredible Hulktook a fair bit more time to do so, only making $55 million in its own first weekend. While it would still been theoretically possible for this to not foreshadow doom for the film, its lower initial result played its role in a reduced overall result for the second MCU movie.
The NumbersandBox Office MojoplaceThe Incredible Hulk’s worldwide box office between $264-265 million - which would instead only come out to around $389 million today. As of 2025,The Incredible Hulkstill has one of the smallest worldwide box offices of all time, with almost every MCU release since then making more than this amount - especially since inflation will inherently mean future Marvel movies are less likely to make the same number. However,The Marvels' $199 million results do now mean that, as of 2023, it’s no longer the MCU movie with the lowest worldwide box office.
The Incredible Hulkspent 15 years as the MCU movie with the lowest worldwide box office in the franchise.
When compared toIron Mandirectly, though,the MCU’s second movie made $320 million less than its predecessor- which is a pretty drastic number, especially given that difference is over $50 million more thanThe Incredible Hulk’s own full worldwide box office. As it stands, though, there were a fair few reasons that can be considered at least partially responsible for this lower overall result, and not all of them can be attributed to the film itself.
Why The Incredible Hulk’s Box Office Was So Much Lower Than Iron Man
It is worth saying first and foremost that the difference betweenIron ManandThe Incredible Hulk’s respective box office results can be considered a result of the first MCU movie’s considerable success adding extra distance between the two releases.Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man was a staple cornerstone of the franchise throughout his on-screen story, and it’s no surprise that audiences reacted to the initial movie that showed the potential of this casting so well, especially since it also established a lot of the tone that has worked so effectively for the MCU in many of its biggest releases.
However, elements ofThe Incredible Hulkcan be seen to have hampered its success. Its timing is one of those factors, as the film releasing only a few years after the 2003Hulkmovie - which currently has a 26% Popcornmeter onRotten Tomatoes- already made it more likely audiences might avoid the movie, either because they felt they didn’t need to see another Hulk film, or because they didn’t like the prior one. With little links betweenIron ManandThe Incredible Hulk- and tonal differences between the two - the MCU itself wasn’t enough to help the movie yet either.
Similarly, comicbook movies themselves were still often relatively risky prospects. As much asThe Dark KnightandIron Mansaw considerable financial results in 2008, the year also saw far less lucrative results forHellboy II: The Golden ArmyandPunisher: War Zone, reinforcing the idea that the 2008 Hulk film had simply ended up being a movie that didn’t draw audiences in, and thus ended up in a less promising situation when compared toIron Man. However, this at least didn’t stop the Hulk himself from having an on-screen story that now spans almost a decade in theMCUafterwards.
