The economics of shared cinematic universes

This paper examines whether the commercial success of films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is driven by narrative interconnectedness within a shared cinematic universe. Using Avengers: Endgame as a temporal breakpoint, we compare the return on investment (ROI) of films released before and after this event and construct a co-starring network based on actor overlap across films to measure character interconnectedness using eigenvector centrality. We document that films released after Endgame exhibit significantly lower profitability than earlier releases and that early-phase films are characterized by denser and more integrated character networks. Moreover, ROI is positively and significantly associated with eigenvector centrality, with this relationship remaining robust across market segments. We further identify a small number of films that achieve strong box-office performance despite low network connectivity, indicating that strong standalone appeal can partially substitute for universe-level integration. By linking narrative network structure to financial outcomes, this study provides a parsimonious empirical framework for analyzing performance in large-scale film franchises and other forms of serialized content.