This got me thinking about all the problems with this statement. I see what they're trying to do, but I didn't trust the result so I did some of my own calculations. Now, this doesn't take into account several factors. The biggest of al is that all of these DC movies were produced by Warner Brothers, while the Marvel ones are divided. Universal Studios has Howard the Duck and Hulk, while New Line has the Blade movies, Fox has the X-Men franchise, Daredevil, Elektra, and the Fantastic Fours, Punisher belongs to Lionsgate, and The Spiderman and Ghost Rider Movies are with Columbia. After Disney bought Marvel, then Marvel Studios had the Money to make their own films starting with Iron Man and leading up to the Avengers. So is it fair to compare the 19 films put out by Warner Bros. for DC with the 28 movies put out by the 6 different studios?
I don't know the answer, but I did figure out what I could. I went over to boxofficemojo.com to get all the domestic lifetime grosses of the movies. I went over to usinflationcalculator.com to convert the grosses to what it would cost today. I then used those figures to come up with the averages. The averages (just the movies above) I came up with overall are DC: $211,266,988.82 and Marvel: $203,904,841.47 which matches their claims.
Now, I'm sure a lot of you are thinking, hey what about those other, less popular movies. Why aren't V for Vendetta, or Road to Perdition, or Men in Black on the list? Well maybe not, but I was thinking that. Here's where it got a bit trickier. The Men in Black movies and Kick Ass are based off a comic that is now owned by Marvel. On the DC side they also have Road to Perdition, League of Extraordinary, History of Violence, Constantine, V for Vendetta, Stardust, The Spirit, The Losers, and RED. Factoring these in we get averages of DC: $165,287,168.47 and Marvel: $204,546,738.69.
Interesting that DC drops so low on the average. One could argue that only Constantine, V, and the Losers were produced by Warner Bros. Using the average from all the Warner Bros. DC movies we get an average of $183,156,576.28 per movie.
Anyways, let's take a look at which Studio on the Marvel side is winning. Lionsgate only has the punisher movies and is struggling at $25 million per film. New Line Cinemas has their Blad films averaging around $90 million. Who knows if that will continue once Snipes serves out his jail time for tax fraud... Universal, with their Howard the Duck and Hulk films average around $100 million. 20th Century Fox with their X-Men franchise, Daredevil, Elektra, and Fantastic Fours average around $175 million. Spiderman is holding up Ghost Rider to just below the $300 million mark at Columbia. Marvel Studios managed to learn from all the others and are sneaking by just above a $300 million average. Just out of curiosity I averaged the Spiderman movies alone, which came out to a little over $400 million. Interesting that the best franchise in Marvel is not done by Marvel Studios. The Men in Black movies are averaging just over $200 million.
Over in DC the Batman Franchise is averaging about $315 million while the Dark Knight Trilogy alone is at $420 million and Superman as stuck at $230 million.
As to who is making better movies, DC has 7 films over 80% on Rotten Tomatoes and 13 over 70%, and 13 under 60%. Superman and The Dark Knight are the only 2 to break 90% at 95 and 94 respectively.
Marvel has 8 over the 80% mark, 14 over 70%, and 15 below 60%. Spiderman 2 (93), Iron Man (94), The Avengers (92), and Men in Black (90) all broke 90%.
Who's the winner? Hard to say. Well not really. Both companies are kicking ass in Box office numbers with a combined domestic total over $11 billion. I'm sure the worldwide numbers are similar and probably wouldn't change them too much. If somebody wants to compile the list of Worlwide grosses for me, I'll do the analysis again. I'm too burnt on the topic to go look them up.
Side note. DC also had Swamp Thing and Return of Swamp thing, but I couldn't find any box office for the former, so it didn't seem right to add the inferior sequel without the original.
Here's my notes on the subject:
Now onto my thoughts on the films. Really Dan? All that and you're just now getting to your thoughts? Hey, you're the one reading it.
DC. I definitely love the Dark Knight Trilogy the best. While I do have a great respect for the first 2 Superman and Batman films, I don't think they are as quality as Nolan's iteration. Low on the scale of ones I've seen are the Steel movie and the latter two 90s Batmans. I think Watchmen, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and The Losers are all solid movies and underrated by most.
Marvel: I tend to stand out over here as my opinion often varies from other people. I like the Blade movies pretty well. I think Spiderman was the best of the original trilogy and that the Amazing Spiderman is better than that. Loved the X-Men movies, but they went downhill after one, until First Class came out. I love the Men in Black movies, as they are right up my alley. Once we get into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I like all of the movies. Incredible Hulk is the least favorite and Avengers is right at the top.
Pitting my favorites against each other I would have Dark Knight, Superman, and V For Vendetta versus Avengers, The Amazing Spiderman, and X-Men. I think that DC has the better movies, but I would easily choose to watch several of the Marvel movies, depending on the day. Basically, they all have merit (arguably) and I am really glad I don't have to choose between Marvel and DC. Well that's enough of a post for now. Who do you guys think has the better movie selection?
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