Disaster Analysts Estimate The Fictional Destruction In ‘Man of Steel’ Would Cost $750 Billion

A few folks (including Daredevil writer Mark Waid and ComicsAlliance's Chris Sims) have referred to elements of director Zack Snyder's Man of Steel as "disaster porn," but just how much damage is actually dealt by Superman, Zod and company in the movie?

Buzzfeed aimed to find out, so it contacted the folks at Watson Technical Consulting to assess the cost, in lives and in monetary figures. The results are pretty staggering.Watson's analysts say the destruction of Metropolis in the movie would be comparable to the United States dropping the atomic bomb on Nagasaki in World War II, with 129,000 people confirmed dead, another 250,000 missing and likely dead, and another million people injured. The damage zone would be about a mile in diameter.

The monetary hit? $750 billion, with a total economic impact of $2 trillion. For comparison, the 9/11 attacks did about $55 billion worth of damage, with a total impact of $123 billion. Man of Steel's estimated movie budget was a comparatively cheap $255 million.

How does Man of Steel's movie mayhem compare to other films in the superhero genre? Last year, Kinetic Analysis Corp. (yes, there are apparently two separate firms who do this kind of thing) estimated the damage to New York in The Avengers at about $160 billion.

Looks like we have a new measure for superhero films that goes beyond simple box office. Step your game up, Avengers 2. Get to work on wiping out a whole state!