I wonder if DC will ever be on top again. Unreal.

Spider-man and Hulk aside, ALL of these characters were no name, D-list character prior to 2008. Now look at them.

The last 10 years have been beyond impressive. I don't think there is any cinematic equivalent to this. 18 movies in 10 years and popularity only growing?

Idk, Star Wars built a brand off of nothing. Marvel had at least comics and superhero films come before it.

Star Ward had game-changing special effects, half the movies, and 4x the amount of time.

That Marvel hasn't diluted its brand, but rather its grown in popularity, is incredible.

It is pretty amazing what they've been able to do over the last 10 years. Feige is probably very underpaid.

Nope, Star Wars is still above. In the all-time adjusted chart the first Marvel movie sits at #29 (the Avengers, perhaps soon to be Black Panther). Star Wars has five movies in the top 20.

Nobody has forgotten. TFA made more domestic money in 17 days than Infinity War will make in 3 months.

Marvel is becoming a monster overseas, which is probably more impressive than the Marvel domestic performance. But it's also impressive they don't seem to be losing their audience. They pump out 3 movies every year and the films keep getting bigger and bigger, even when you adjust the older films for inflation.

It obviously would have made substantially less had it opened in late April. It was also the first film in 10 1/2 years for the brand. What the fuck do you think would happen in Marvel didn't make a movie for 2 years in a row and then released an awesome team up movie? They got to the well with what common sense says is far too much frequency yet the demand only grows. It's astounding.

Meanwhile, Star Wars is now making films at Marvel's pace. The last 2 and next one up won't compare with BP, IW, or A4 next year.

Child plz.

This is the primary point,. Star Wars current is already suffering substantially from over saturation and their only 4 films in.

It's definitely up there with Star Wars, Harry Potter and the Tolkien "universe" (LOTR + Hobbit) as one of the most impressive franchises ever

It is CLEARLY ahead of LOTR.

Potter is hard to compare. Those movies would do $1.5b overseas alone with todays markets.

I think DOM it's SW > Marvel > LOTR > HP and OS it's HP > Marvel = SW > LOTR.

domestically star wars is head and shoulders above the rest, world wide MCU is easily competing with the heavy hitters.

LOTR has less films but the batting average is a lot better than Star Wars. Return of the King had the second highest OS gross ever after Titanic when it came out. The Hobbit films had higher OS admissions than every post OT Star Wars films bar Force Awakens.

If we accounted only for traditional OS markets (UK, France, Japan, Germany) I would actually have put LOTR above Marvel and on par with SW, but Marvel is just so strong in most emerging markets while still grossing hefty amounts in mature markets that I think it edges out overall compared to the LOTR/Hobbit franchise.

I'm not a huge fan of the films but from a business perspective the MCU is genius. The amount of money they've printed off this is just ridiculous

Marvel should have failed by now. That they haven't is an incredible testament to the visionaries behind them.

I agree. Best series achievement ever.

Lord of the Rings takes Star Wars OS I feel. Star Wars is not as popular OS

I would usually balk at a statement like this but after seeing how spectacularly WB screwed up its own superhero universe I have to agree.

Although I wouldn't credit it entirely to Disney, the seeds for the MCU were planted by Paramount, including the original Iron Man breaking out which really made all this possible in the first place.

The frequency with which they are pumping out movies in a year is astounding. That alone is the biggest achievement. None of the series were able to keep increasing the demand at this rate. I'd say it has been the best series for that reason alone. If we talk about cultural impact and sheer numbers I think SW takes Domestic and HP OS (I don't think LOTR had as bigger cultural impact and Hobbit movies decreased at an alarming rate).

Batman is biggest solo character domestically.
Star Wars is biggest brand domestically.
Potter is biggest solo brand overseas.
Furious is biggest brand overseas.
Potter is biggest solo brand globally (US+international)
Marvel is biggest brand globally (US+international).



Paramount and Disney both deserve credit for recognizing Marvel Studios potential and rolling with it.

They definitely deserve credit, but comparing them to other franchises isn't exactly an apples to apples comparison.

There are so many characters. Yeah, most were no-name D-list superheroes, but they have so many to pick from.

You can't pick apart a book in the same way. And Star Wars did do it from scratch.

The names definitely helped, although Guardians of the Galaxy was really a heat check in that sense, a space fantasy with no recognizable source should've been their flop but they crushed it.

Formula or not Marvel's achievement is mastereing how to make B or better superhero films and somehow virtually never have pissed the geeks off or had TLJ like backlash in other ways. This hides that outside of MCU, superhero films have usually had 50% chance of being remembered as a classic and 50% chance of being trash, the floor is SUPER low if you fuck up

You can have solo movies for the books characters but it won't work like the way MCU has build its characters. A solo Ron, Hermoine, Dumbledore movies in a span of 3 years just won't work. And we will see the fate of Solo shortly, it will do great because of the brand still being huge but I don't see it doing HUGE numbers.

The question now is... Has the franchise maxed out the potential for itself? I can't imagine IW2 will increase the OW.

I guess that's why Disney is buying Fox? Because after this, the only way they could top it would be with the X-Men and Fantastic Four.