So, ahead of Shazam 2, which may or may not struggle at the box office, I’ve done some analysis on the box office performance of 99 Marvel and DC live action films (yes, there’s been that many).
It isn’t enough to just look at the box office and say ‘oh look, The Dark Knight Rises made $7m more than the Joker, therefore it must’ve been more successful’. You obviously need to look at the cost (i.e. budget) of the film, which isn’t always easy to be accurate with.
I’ve used Wikipedia’s higher end estimates for budget. Not the best way, not the worst. In addition, I’ve added 30% on top of that budget as that film’s marketing (not usually included). 30% is a pretty arbitrary number, but it’ll do. In addition, only about half (and that varies also) of a film’s box office actually makes it back to the studio. So I’ve used this simple formula to give an indication of a film’s success:
(Budget + 30%) x 2 = Break even point for a film.
Now box office isn’t the only source of a revenue for a film (as Dwayne Johnson will tell you). There’s home video, streaming deals, tax breaks, product placement, toys and merchandise, etc. So even if a film has underperformed at the box office, it does not necessarily mean it wasn’t successful in the long run.
I’ll have a lot of graphs here. The way to interpret is the farthest away the dot is above the breakeven line, the more money it made. On the flip side, the farthest away the dot is below the breakeven line, the more money it lost. Box office is on the y axis, budget is the x axis (both in $m), and the blue line is the breakeven. I’ve kept the scale the same for easy comparison for each graph.
As 99 films makes for a pretty messy image, I’m going to go through sectors of each of Marvel and DC.
Superman
Supes is an icon, but do the numbers support that?
Again, box office on the y access, budget on the x.
You’ll believe a man can fly.
1978 released the first genuinely successful comic book film, and was a box office smash, making a 110% on its cost. But since then, it has been much more of a mixed bag. Superman II, with many behind the scenes problems (the original Snyder cut), led to a much more subdued box office return (35.6%) but still strong. However, the rest of that franchise – Superman III, Superman IV and Supergirl – all were box office flops, with decreasing budgets.
But the nostalgic appeal of Christopher Reeves’ original series led to a soft reboot in 2006, with the Brandon Routh led Superman Returns. However, a big budget and lukewarm response, led to a poor box office return (33% loss) and no sequel.
Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel (14% return) – despite a divisive response – faired much better, going above its break even. As did its follow up Batman v Superman (12% return). However, those films were released after The Avengers, and these results were seen as soft.
James Gunn has a challenge ahead of him to turn Superman back into box office gold, especially in a time of decreasing returns for CBMs.
Batman
The original cinematic superstar has had crazy highs, and even crazier lows.
Adam West’s 1966 Batman Movie was his first feature film adventure, but it really was a non-event. A continuation of the TV show, with a micro budget and a small return.
It wasn’t until Tim Burton’s Michael Keaton led Batman film in 1989 that the game changed. The film was a phenomenal success and broke records, with a 230% return. Burton returned for the sequel Batman Returns, but studio clashes and decreasing box office return (28%) led to Joel Schumacher taking over. Schumacher’s Batman Forever, despite poor reviews, did reasonably well and beat Batman Returns at the box office. However, Batman & Robin was a franchise killer, with a bad 43% loss.
Enter Christopher Nolan. Nolan’s Batman Begins was modest at the box office with a 4% loss, but the film was very well received and is rightly seen as one of the best comic book movies going around. Its sequel showed that word of mouth was strong, and The Dark Knight was a roaring success – cracking a billion dollars, and a 109% return. The Dark Knight Rises also showed a strong result of a 39% return to complete the trilogy.
As mentioned before, Batman v Superman’s return of 12% was not a disaster, but it was expected to do more.
Robert Pattinson’s The Batman also performed well with a 48% return, and is looking in a strong position.
I’ve thrown in Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker film here as Batman-related, and it may well be the most successful comic book film of all time. Cracking a billion dollars, winning Oscars and having a remarkable 490% return.
The DCEU
DC’s first attempt at a connective universe has been controversial to say the least, but what do the numbers say?
With all the negative press that DC gets, it is sometimes easy to forget that the films for the large part have performed well.
Man of Steel and Batman v Superman had modest returns, but Wonder Woman (111%), Suicide Squad (64%) and Aquaman (121%) were fantastic financial successes. Shazam!, off its small budget, also performed strongly with a 48% return. Its sequel will have some work to do though I think.
Birds of Prey, The Suicide Squad and Wonder Woman 1984 all showed significant losses, but they were all at least in part heavily impacted by Covid-19. I don’t think you can extrapolate a story their.
The big negative story was of course Justice League. Its massive $300m budget meant it needed to perform strongly, and poor reviews and strong negative fan reaction, meant it simply wasn’t up to the task with a 16% loss. This film was the end of the DCEU in a lot of ways.
Black Adam was a true disaster though. A ridiculously large budget, poor reviews and poor returns, showed a 42% loss for the Dwayne Johnson led film.
DC
And the rest? Of the films we haven’t talked about already, it isn’t a pretty picture.
Some truly horrendous films in this bunch, both in quality and returns. Noteworthy:
• 96% loss for Steel
• 91% loss for Jonah Hex
• 68% loss for Catwoman
• 58% loss for Green Lantern
• 48% loss for Watchmen
• 11% loss for Constantine
I’m a fan of both Watchmen and Constantine, but the numbers didn’t warrant a sequel.
Spider-Man
And over in Marvel land? Spider-Man was the true box office beginning of 21st century feature films. But it hasn’t all been easy.
2002’s Spider-Man as a huge hit, fans loved it, critics liked it, and it made a 128% return. Sequels and reboots were guaranteed from that point. Spider-Man 2 performed well, but not as a strong as its predecessor, with a 52% return. Sony went all in with Spider-Man 3 with a mammoth budget, and even though it was the highest grossing of the trilogy, the profits weren’t there.
Spider-Man 4 didn’t happen after battles over budgets and storylines, so the series was rebooted with The Amazing Spider-Man, which showed a decent return of 27%. Sony doubled down on The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which didn’t go over well with critics, and struggled to recreate that box office magic, being the lowest box office for any of the 5 Spidey films, despite being very expensive. That tied in with Sony’s disastrous email hack, led to the famous Sony-Disney deal to share the character under Marvel Studios.
There was immediate success. Homecoming showed 94% return and was made relatively cheap comparted to most Spidey films. Far From Home, on the coat tails of Endgame, became the first Spidey film to crack $1b with an astonishing 172% return. But No Way Home was the real success, joining all 3 Spider-Man for a mammoth $1.8 billion box office haul with 270% return. Spider-Man has never had a box office disaster, and remains the most popular character (with Batman) in the comic book world.
Meanwhile, Sony has had some success with a Spider-Man-less Spider-Man movies, despite poor critical response for all three films. Venom was a juggernaut, with a 184% return, and Let There Be Carnage, despite lower box office, showed a very strong 77% return. Morbius was terrible though, critically loathed, and nobody showed up with a 22% loss.
X-Men
The X-Men have never enjoyed the box office highs of The Avengers, Spider-Man or Batman, but deserve a lot of credit for the current wave of Superhero films.
The original X-Men, with a modest budget, proved a hit with fans and critics, and showed a 52% return. X2 was also well received, with a 41% return. Fox put all their might into The Last Stand, but unfortunately, despite outgrossing X-Men and X2, the expense of the film made this a less successful output with a 16% loss.
Fox went very Wolverine centric, and haphazardly put together X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which wasn’t a hit critically and had disappointing results. The Wolverine was given a more personal story in a different setting with a smaller budget, and director James Mangold had some success with 21% return. Fox let Mangold take on Wolverine again with the R-Rated Logan, which was a huge success critically (an Oscar nomination for writing!) and turned in an amazing 88% return.
Studios can never resist prequels for some reason. The first of which, First Class, was a critical success but didn’t set the box office on fire, with a 15% loss. Original director Bryan Singer was brought back to join both casts in Days of Future Past, which showed a 40% return and the highest box office gross for the main X-Men film series. However, it was downwards from there – Apocalypse did well enough with an 18% return but wasn’t a critical success, and Dark Phoenix was a real dud – critically hated and barely noticed at the box office with 52% loss.
Deadpool forced himself into existence, given a very small budget of $58m, it generated a crazy 419% return and proved R-Rated comic book movies could work. The sequel, though somewhat less well received, still proved hugely successful with a 175% return.
And lastly, The New Mutants, left on a shelf for years with various delays, was quietly released during Covid with a 76% loss. Hard to judge that film financially really, but people had moved on.
MCU Phase 1
And now the big guns.
Phase 1 was do-or-die for Marvel. Having sold all their favourite children to Fox and Sony, and with the company close to bankruptcy, they put it all on making their remaining characters work.
If Iron Man failed. Marvel might have folded. It didn’t. Iron Man (61% return) proved a surprise financial and critical hit, which they needed, because The Incredible Hulk (32% loss) underperformed only a few months later. Iron Man 2 (20%) showed some strength but was not as well received, while Thor (15%) and The First Avenger (2%) were modest hits at bet.
But then came the game changer. The Avengers were released with such huge box office success and gushing critical and fan response, that it changed the cinema box office forever. The Avengers made 160% return, but actually cracked $1.5b to be the 3rd highest grossing film of all time (at the time, behind only Avatar and Titanic).
Marvel, from the brink of bankruptcy, were not the most popular kids in town.
MCU Phase 2
And could it continue? Enter ‘The Avengers’ effect.
The next 3 sequels were Iron Man 3 (134% return), Thor: The Dark World (46% return) and Captain America: The Winter Soldier (55% return) – all of which were significant improvements on their predecessors, and it became known as the ‘The Avengers’ effect.
The relatively unknown property Guardians of the Galaxy showed a strong 28% return, while Ant-Man rounded out phase 2 with a strong but modest 18% return.
Before Ant-Man though was Age of Ultron. Marvel went all-in on this film, with an insanely high budget rumoured to be up to $495m, and despite good box office, returned only a small 9% return. Nothing terrible, but nowhere near surpassing the original.
Marvel Phase 3
Peak performance?
Marvel released 11 films in Phase 3, and everyone one of them broke even, some proving megahits.
Captain America: Civil War (77%) return, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (66% return), Thor: Ragnarok (83% return) and Ant-Man and The Wasp (23%) showed that sequels still made a lot of money.
Spidey debuted in the MCU with huge hits Homecoming (94% return) and Far From Home (172%), as discussed earlier.
But the new characters proved the real strength. Doctor Strange (10%) returned showed a modest return, but Black Panther (166% return) and Captain Marvel (149%) return were both outstanding – as people started to believe the Marvel brand couldn’t miss.
Finally, two Avengers film broke all sorts of records. Despite budgets of up to $400m each, Infinity War made a startling 97% return while Endgame made an earth shattering 169% return to become (briefly) the highest grossing film of all time.
Marvel Phase 4 and 5
Was Covid The Avengers’ biggest threat?
The world changed, and so did consumer and supplier behaviour.
Black Widow (27% loss), Eternals (23% loss) and Shang-Chi (17%) loss were all on the wrong side of the break even, but has to be noted were impacted by Covid-19.
However, big sequels Spider-Man: No Way Home (270% return), Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness (84% return), Thor: Love and Thunder (17% return) and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (32%) return all made money. However, a feeling of perhaps that some could have done better, with Thor and Black Panther sequels not reaching their heights of the predecessors.
The real concern was Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania, which (all though will make a couple of extra million), will fail to reach its break even, currently at a 11% loss. This isn’t a disaster, but was shaped up to be a big event film, and the critical and commercial response would have to be seen as a disappointment.
All of the MCU
Just for fun
Hard to see that as anything but an overall amazing success.
All Marvel
That everyone?
Of films not already mentioned, some interesting ones include:
• The first Fantastic Four movie made a strong 28% return, but its sequel Rise of the Silver Surfer showed a 11% loss, while the reboot was a disaster with a 58% loss.
• Blade (12% return) and Blade II (10% return) were modest successes, but Blade: Trinity (22% loss) wasn’t.
• Fox’s Daredevil was a 12% loss, and its spinoff Elektra was a disaster with a 66% loss.
• The Nicolas Cage Ghost Rider films were not a success, with a 20% loss and a 32% loss.
• The Eric Bana Hulk film was not well received, with a 31% loss.
• The Punisher (36% loss) and Punisher: War Zone (89% loss) were very poor performers, despite very small budgets.
• Marvel’s first film – Howard the Duck – did not succeed, with a 61% loss.
All of Marvel and DC live-action films!
In case you want to hurt your eyes.
Remember, this is an indicator only. Some of these will be wildly wrong.
Of the 99 films (Shazam! 2 is still too early to show, but it isn’t looking good), 58 films showed profits. It is clear comic book films are not always sure things, but overall the 99 Films I have at an estimated $7.7b profit.