It’s fair to say that whilst superhero movies have been dominating the box office for a while now, Marvel has enjoyed somewhat of a monopoly in the market over recent years.
Most movie enthusiasts will agree that you have to go all the way back to 2012 and The Dark Knight Rises to find the latest great DC superhero movie. However, with DC finally getting their act together at the back end of the year and offering up some quality competition in the shape of Wonder Woman and The LEGO Batman Movie, 2017 is now set to be the most successful year ever in terms of live action superhero movies.
Of the six superhero films which were released in 2017, four of these are now considered to be in the top five superhero films of all time according to movie review site Rotten Tomatoes. Rather unsurprisingly, Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman tops the list, with Hugh Jackman’s final Wolverine story Logan coming in at second place, ahead of Spiderman: Homecoming (4th) and Thor: Ragnarok (5th). Fans of the wisecracking Batman that we saw steal the centre stage in The LEGO Batman Movie will be pleased to note that the movie came in at 10th and is one of only two animated movies on the list along with Disney and Pixar’s 2004 hit The Incredibles.
As important as it is to get good reviews from both critics and avid cinema-goers alike, the financial success of the comic book movie juggernaut is what continues to motivate the production of films within the genre. The half-dozen movies superhero movies which were released this year have so far grossed in excess of $4 billion in terms of worldwide box office revenue, which is by far the highest combined total for superhero movies in a single year. Marvel’s latest offering Thor: Ragnarok recently crossed the $300m mark at the domestic box office and is the fourth superhero movie of the year to achieve the feat.
The superhero movie genre may well have generated record-breaking revenue when it comes to selling tickets but it is also the sale of related memorabilia and merchandise which also continues to rake in the big bucks, with franchises such as Wonder Woman and Spiderman continuing to make a killing when it comes to the sale of movie-related merchandise. In addition to this, Lego Batman was recently named the best selling superhero video game of all time, there is reportedly a new Wonder Woman multi-platform game in the works, while there’s even a Thor online slot game from Coral where users can take advantage of a casino bonus to help the God of Thunder on his quest to purge evil from Asgard by clicking through a link on Oddschecker.
Despite the fact that it’ll be hard to top 2017 in terms of superhero success, 2018 looks set to be another bumper year for the genre. Next year sees a number of highly anticipated releases hitting the big screen including Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War and Ant-Man and the Wasp, the sequel to the highly successful 2014 effort featuring the much loved Paul Rudd. Can 2018 top 2017? Who knows? One thing’s for sure, if it fails, it won’t be for a lack of effort.
