Marvel vs DC battle for King of Comic Movies: What do the numbers say?
Over the years, comic fans have argued over who would be victorious in the battle of comic superheroes. Most people want to be associated with superheroes. The combination of superhuman powers with real human emotions makes them entertaining. Frontrunners like Marvel and DC, have taken superheroes from comic books to the forefront of cinemas. Thanks to these big two brands, superhero stories are now firmly positioned among the highest grossing film franchises worldwide.
There is an unending debate as to which brand is better, in terms of entertainment, critic score review, trend of movie distributors by earnings, most profitable movie and how comic movies have been well placed on a global level.
To understand the battle between these two brands, numbers in the form of data were analyzed to identify their individual differences, and what makes one brand outshine the other.
To navigate through this, data collection work was done in Excel. Data was cleaned thoroughly to get rid of Duplicates, Blanks and Errors using the data tool function. Analysis was carried out using Excel’s Pivot table to identify trends, patterns and create charts where necessary.
So, let’s get started.
MARVEL vs DC BOX OFFICE(GROSS)
This chart shows the revenue variation amongst 3 different categories (Gross domestic, Other territories and worldwide gross). It’s observed that movies under the Marvel’s franchise have a gross revenue of $26.8billion in other territories as compared to the movies under the DC’s franchise ($8.6billion). This means that a movie under the Marvel company is more popular than DC movies in foreign countries. This could be due to marketing strategies put in place by the Marvel franchise to gain global dominance.
MOVIE EARNINGS BY GROSS OFFICE.
This chart clearly shows that Marvel owned movies tops the list of movies with the highest earnings. Out of a total of $44.7billion Marvel movies, Avengers: End game ranks the top movie with the highest gross earnings worldwide of $2.8billion.
According to a report from Consumer News and Business Channel (CNBC), there were factors that led to the high gross earnings. One of it was as a result of advanced ticketting sales which led to more show times and prompted cinema owners to eagerly add more screenings, some at odd hours, to meet the demand.
Another was due to the fact that the distribution of the movie was coordinated in a such a way that the majority of the film’s opening weekend releases occurred in the same weekend. For “Endgame,” Disney was able to debut the film in more than 50 countries all within the same five days. This careful timing allowed the film to gross $866.5 million internationally on the same weekend it earned $357.1 million domestically, leading to a haul of more than $1.2 billion globally.
DISTRIBUTOR EARNINGS
Asides from the fact that distributors market movies to gain box office success, they also create an important connection between film producers and exhibitors. They must be able to identify the film’s target audience. And they have to come up with creative ways to market the film so it can achieve box office success.
This chart shows that Marvel’s Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures($23.6billion) has a higher earning power than DC’s Warner Bros($15.1billion). It’s evident that the marketing strategy of Marvel’s Franchise yields higher earnings and also gives the target audience a more entertaining experience.
YEARLY TREND OF FRANCHISE REVENUE
This shows the trend of movies produced under these two big brands over a period of time. Marvel movies produced between year 2018 -2021 had the highest revenue ($15billion) as compared to DC movies produced same year ($3.8billion). Looking at the other side, DC movies started gaining popularity between year 2002–2005 as compared to movies produced under the Marvel franchise that existed long before this period.
FRANCHISE BY MOVIE CRITIC
The rotten tomatoes critic score evaluates the percentage of professional critic reviews that are positive for a given movie or TV show. A Rotten Tomatoes “Certified Fresh” rating is 60% or higher. The 60% means that 60% of critics liked the movie. In this case Marvel movies have a critic score of about 67% which indicates 67% of the critic liked marvel movies This is a plus for the marvel franchise.
Final thoughts
- Marvel projects are more successful.
2. Marvel has more global dominance than DC.
3. Marvel movies had more popularity long before DC movies became prominent.
4. The Flop status of the Break even between DC and Marvel is almost a tie.
So who is the King of Comics? The numbers have said it all.
References
Ø Statista: Superhero movies — statistics & facts. Published by Laura Carollo
Ø Reports from StatCrunch https://www.statcrunch.com/reports/view?reportid=44524&tab=preview
Ø Here’s how ‘Avengers: Endgame’ made so much money at the box office so quickly https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/07/how-avengers-endgame-made-so- much-money-at-the-box-office-so-quickly.html#:~:text=Here’s%20how%20'Avengers%3A%20Endgame’,the%20box%20office%20so%20quickly&text=The%20meteoric%20rise%20of%20%22Avengers,box%20office%20to%20record%20highs.
Ø https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/marvel-vs-dc-rivalry-what-do-data-say-mustafa-idris/