Box Office Battle: this superhero movie franchise earned the most

With The Batman movie coming out March 4th, fans eagerly await this new addition to an already growing bank of successful superhero films. Seen as symbols of strength, responsibility, justice or loss, superheroes have won the admiration of millions of people around the world. But among so many superheroes across the Marvel and DC universes, which one has the power to win the highest box office earnings of all time?

The experts at Top10Casinos.com were keen to find this out by extracting worldwide box office earnings per major Marvel and DC superhero movies, to establish the franchise cashing in the most.

Some key findings include …

  • Spider-Man is the superhero that earns the most at the box office, with over €7 billion earnings

  • Batman ranks  second, with a €3 billion gap to that of Spider-Man

  • DC superheroes Green Lantern, Harley Quinn and Catwoman are the lowest earning superheros ank in the bottom three

  • Despite 7 films under his belt, the first superhero, Superman just misses out on the top 3

The top 10 superheroes earning the most at the box office?  

Superhero Movie Franchise

Total box office earnings for all franchise movies (worldwide)

Spider-Man

€7,081,451,125

Batman

€3,999,998,454

Iron Man

€2,109,350,522

Superman

€2,102,818,875

Captain America

€1,947,346,033

Thor

€1,694,841,492

Deadpool

€1,364,798,058

Black Panther

€1,172,410,237

Aquaman

€999,182,721

Ant-Man

€993,527,910

Spider-Man, also known as Peter Parker, has been crowned as the superhero that’s earned the most from the box office so far, topping the chart with €7,081,451,125 for all franchise movie earnings. The latest Spider-man movie, Spider-Man: No Way Home, starring Tom Holland, has already bagged the franchise €1.5 billion, just two months after release! 

Batman ranked second in this box office battle, beaten to the number one spot by a huge €3.1 billion. All Batman films have made €3,999,998,454 worldwide including Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice where the main man himself and Superman both shared earnings for their joint charm to attract audiences. 

In third place, we have Iron Man: another win for Marvel! As the founding member of the superhero team The Avengers, this genius yet arrogant man made €2,109,350,522 for all franchise films.

Next, we have the first superhero in the universe, the one who opened the superhero costume industry, Superman! With 7 films produced, box office revenue amounts to €2,102,818,875 with the earliest one dating back to 1978. 

The superhero earning the least at the box office?

When it comes to the superhero that has earned the least money at box office, the bottom three superheroes are all from the DC universe! 

Catwoman from Gotham City, ranks last out of 21 superheroes analysed, having earned just €71,429,070 so far. Whilst Harley Quinn, places second last, having debuted in Suicide Squad, and in 2020 starring in her very own franchise movie Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey which has made her €175,616,861.

With Batman’s new movie: The Batman due to come out this March 4th, will it be a box office miracle to earn €3 billion and overtake Spider-Man to top the chart? 

A battle between Thor, Black Panther, Doctor Strange and Aquaman is certainly on too, with releases due out this year, with the earliest: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness coming  this May.  

Please view the research in full, ranking all 21 superhero movies here

Methodology

  1. Top10Casinos.com was intrigued to find out which popular superhero franchise movies made by Marvel and DC have made the most in revenue through box office earnings

  2. A seed list of Marvel and DC superhero movies was created based on movies and characters listed on Marvel and DC websites. https://www.marvel.com/movies and https://www.dccomics.com/movies

  3. Top10Casinos.com then scraped worldwide box office data from IMDbPro

  4. The earnings of each superhero movie are accounted for by all movies depicting them as the main character, except that Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is counted for both superheroes.

  5. Since only the main character(s) is counted, their appearances in mega-event superhero team-up movies (e.g., Avengers, Justice League, Guardians of the Galaxy etc.) are excluded

  6. The earnings are then ranked by each superhero movie

  7. All data was rightfully collected on 09/02/2022. 

*Please note that box office data is live and subject to change.

Credit: Top10Casinos.com