Despite its star power, ‘Secret Invasion’ is the worst reviewed production of the MCU © 2022 MARVEL.
Courtesy of Marvel Studios
The cost of the lowest-rated instalment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has come to light in filings released by Disney today.
Called Secret Invasion, the Disney+ streaming series debuted in 2023 and seemed set to be a surefire hit. Based on a beloved comic book series, Secret Invasion starred Samuel L. Jackson and Oscar-winner Olivia Colman as rival secret agents tracking down green shape-shifting aliens who had infiltrated the government.
It was billed as a tense political thriller in the same vein as Marvel’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Captain America: Civil War movies. Both were critically acclaimed and grossed a combined $1.9 billion at the box office standing Secret Invasion in good stead. However, despite having the wind in its sails, it ended up becoming Marvel’s biggest misfire.
Secret Invasion debuted on Disney+ to the second-lowest audience of any MCU streaming series as just 994,000 viewers watched it in its first five days according to media analysts Samba TV.
The worst was yet to come as critics scored the final episode just 7% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes – a record low for an MCU show. The critics consensus was excoriating and described the finale as being “so misjudged that most MCU fans will want to keep it secret from their collective memory.”
Overall, Secret Invasion was rated 43% across more than 5,000 audience reviews whilst 205 critics gave it an average of 53%. In its incisive review of the show, the Financial Times wrote that “where it should be taut and elliptical, it is insistently talky and overripe with exposition; where it might have been quietly gripping, it flits between scenes of cleanly choreographed action and lethargic exchanges.”
The sluggish pacing was a common bone of contention with Rolling Stone writing that “none of it really works. The tone is too dour, especially since there’s precious little tension or suspense to any of it.” Echoing this, The Hollywood Reporter added that “for the most part, Secret Invasion is more dour and even dull than one might expect from its John le Carré/Graham Greene trappings.” They came at quite a cost.
Remarkably, despite being largely set in the corridors of power and seedy city streets, the cost of the six-part series came to a staggering $234.2 million and there is no absolutely doubt about the accuracy of that.
Despite being set in different locations around the world, Secret Invasion was filmed at the historic Pinewood Studios outside London and on location in the city. One of the aliens’ bases was located in its hip neighborhood of Brixton and London’s streets even doubled for Moscow.
‘Secret Invasion’ was filmed in the U.K. © 2023 MARVEL.
Gareth Gatrell
Jackson and co also ventured north and filmed scenes in the less glitzy cities of Leeds, Halifax and Huddersfield. It’s a far cry from tinsel town and this shines a spotlight on the otherwise secretive cost of making streaming shows.
Studios shoot in the United Kingdom to benefit from its Audio-Visual Expenditure Credit (AVEC) which gives them a cash reimbursement of up to 25.5% of the money they spend in the country.
To qualify for the reimbursement, at least 10% of the production costs need to relate to activities in the U.K. In order to demonstrate this to the government, studios set up a separate production company in the U.K. for each show they make there. The companies have to file legally-binding financial statements which reveal everything from the headcount and salaries to the total costs and the level of reimbursement. It takes a bit of detective work to get the information.
The companies usually have code names so that they don’t raise attention with fans when filing for permits to film on location. Tallying the code names with the productions they are responsible for requires deep industry knowledge which my colleague and I have built up over nearly 15 years of reporting.
We are the only journalists worldwide who specialize in covering the financial statements of U.K. film production companies for national media and we have reported on them for more than 10 leading titles including The Times of London, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent and the London Evening Standard.
Once the code name has been correctly tallied with the show, the financial statements can be consulted to reveal how much it cost to make. The Disney subsidiary behind Secret Invasion is called Grass-Fed Productions UK in a nod to the green hue of the aliens and, as with all U.K. companies, its financial statements are released in stages long after the period they relate to. This starts during pre-production and continues after the premiere to give the production team time to ensure that all the bills are paid.
The production company was named for the green-skinned alien Skrulls. © 2023 MARVEL.
Gareth Gatrell
As this author revealed in the U.K.’s Daily Express newspaper, in just over two years to the end of September 2022, Disney spent $187.1 million (£166.2 million) on Secret Invasion. That covered all of the filming and some of the post-production when the shape-shifting aliens were added in digital effects.
Filming wrapped in April 2022 but Jackson later confirmed that he would return to London to work on reshoots which reportedly took a total of four months. This even involved a new writer being hired to work on the additional material which finished filming in September 2022.
The next set of filings largely covered the post-production period and, as this report revealed, they showed that in the year to September 30, 2023, Secret Invasion incurred costs of $37.5 million (£30.7 million) which “was forecast to be over the production budget.” Even that wasn’t the end of the story.
Today’s filings show that in the year to September 30, 2024 a further $9.6 million (£7.2 million) was spent on Secret Invasion “in line with management’s expectations.” It brings the total spending on the show to $234.2 million with only minimal costs likely to be seen in subsequent sets of filings.
This gives Secret Invasion a cost of $54.1 million per hour which is a massive 39 times higher than the $1.4 million (£1 million) minimum hourly spend required to get the reimbursement.
Disney has pocketed a total credit of $47.7 million (£41.1 million) for Secret Invasion bringing its net spending on the show to $186.5 million which, perhaps not coincidentally, is almost identical to the sum it spent on Star Wars spinoff The Acolyte last year. This suggests that Disney set $187 million as its target spend for streaming shows which were given the greenlight in the pandemic and the studio did an impressive job of sticking to it.
Since then costs have come down somewhat as Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige recently revealed in an interview with Variety. He explained that after costs began to balloon in the wake of the pandemic, Marvel “started grinding down the budget”. Given the lukewarm reception that Secret Invasion received that’s no bad thing.