Evans wrote:
This reporting feels flawed to me. I remember the slightly below 1 billion box office of Supes vs Batsy being touted as disappointing, yet the way the Supes is being reported you would think that it was achieving 1 - 2 billion. Words like 'soaring' and 'flying' seem hyperbolic when applied to this modest success. It feels like Gunn has friends at The Hollywood Reporter who owe him a favour.
Context is everything. I think there's a few factors at play, the first of which is the box office for this movie has been pretty split between the United States and the rest of the world. For US box office alone, Superman just entered Warner Bros' top ten highest grossing movies ever released -- beating all of Snyder's superhero movies' box office domestically. So it's clearly a massive success in our country, it's just not a global phenomenon. For those curious, that list --
Barbie ($636.7 million)
The Dark Knight ($536.6 million)
The Dark Knight Rises ($448.1 million)
A Minecraft Movie ($423.9 million)
Wonder Woman ($412.5 million)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II ($382 million)
The Batman ($369.6 million)
American Sniper ($350.1 million)
Superman ($346.9 million)
Joker ($335.4 million)
Secondly, the box office environment has changed dramatically since 2020. $873 million is an incredible haul, absolutely -- but Wonder Woman and Aquaman both beat that number, earning $1 billion each. Can you imagine hearing 10-15 years ago that an Aquaman or Wonder Woman movie not only outgrossed a Batman or Superman movie... but one with
both Batman and Superman meeting in live-action for the first time ever? It grossed enough to make it the 7th highest grossing movie of the year, but it's a movie where
Batman is fighting Superman on the big screen at a time when the superhero movie genre is hotter than it's ever been? Wouldn't you expect it to crack the top five and beat out the Secret Life of Pets and The Jungle Book? Especially when the previous Batman movie grossed $1 billion? When the other two big superhero / fantasy franchises (Civil War and Rogue One) cracked $1 billion that same year? When movies like Captain Marvel are making $1 billion?
Flash forward to today and it's no longer a given that superhero movies are guaranteed blockbusters. The first Captain Marvel did $1 billion worldwide. The sequel, The Marvels, did $206 million. Aquaman did $1 billion worldwide. The sequel did $404 million. We're not in the same environment anymore. The absolute peak fan-favorite movies like Deadpool and GOTG were able to hold a good chunk of their box office but the vast majority aren't.
And then there's the specific context around the DC movie brand. Another way to tell that BvS wasn't as well-received as its box office would tell you was the performance of its sequel, Justice League (released in 2017, pre-pandemic) -- it not only had the titular characters from Batman v Superman, it also had the $1 billion earning Aquaman and Wonder Woman to boot. It made less than all of them with $661 million world wide.
And since then, outside of the solo Batman franchise, DC Studios movies were in freefall. The Flash, Shazam 2, Blue Beetle, Black Adam, etc. -- they all either underperformed or outright bombed. Movies like Iron Man and the Avengers were the tide that lifted all ships, turning stuff like Ant-Man and Dr. Strange into successful properties. The core films of the Snyderverse were an anchor that dragged everything else down over time. BvS was supposed to be the showcase, the selling point, the one that you could build future hits off of -- clearly, that didn't happen.
Now we're in 2025. Superman isn't in the same position BvS was in during 2016. It's in the same position Batman Begins was in when it was released in 2005 -- the previous installment killed the series and spin-offs like Halle Berry's Catwoman weren't helping. It's not about releasing the next installment of a beloved franchise that's flying high, it's about trying to repair and recover from what the last regime did. And beyond that, the public appetite for superhero movies has died down quite a bit -- as you yourself have noted.
Batman Begins did $375 million worldwide -- $35 million *less* than what Batman grossed in 1989. And a good deal less than the $784 million Spider-Man 2 made in the year prior. It's also about $16 million less than what Superman Returns made, which was seen as unsuccessful as well. But Batman Begins was considered very successful and a sequel was greenlit. WB saw the reaction of the critics and audiences who actually did see it and wisely knew that once more people saw it on home video, they'd turn out for a second installment -- and they were right.
Superman 2025, IMHO, is in that same spot. It had the task of extending an olive branch to the audience and given the context of the current market, I think it succeeded. Interest in superhero movies has died down quite a bit, with even Mighty Marvel struggling despite their films getting very positive audience and critical reactions. Superman was able to break free from that, outperform Marvel, and become the #1 grossing superhero movie this year. More than that, and I could be wrong, but I feel a palpable momentum being built from the success of this movie and wouldn't be surprised if the sequel isn't a big hit in the same way The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises were much bigger hits than Batman Begins.
