PANIC AT MARVEL! SUPERHEROES FAIL TO HIT THE TOP BOX OFFICE SPOTS IN 2022! It's All Over.

For the first time in years, DC and Marvel superhero movies failed to dominate the annual theatrical marketplace in 2022 as comic book flicks were overshadowed by big-budget franchises like “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Jurassic World Dominion,” which rose to the top of the box office heap instead.Show more

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For the first time in years, DC and Marvel superhero movies failed to dominate the annual theatrical marketplace in 2022 as comic book flicks were overshadowed by big-budget franchises like “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Jurassic World Dominion,” which rose to the top of the box office heap instead.

With $1.5 billion for “Avatar” and $1.49 billion for “Top Gun,” these sequels finally broke the chokehold that superheroes have held on the global box office since 2017, the last time that blockbuster movies unrelated to DC Studios or Marvel led the movie pipeline.

Meanwhile, 2023 brings a slew of big franchise titles, including “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” “Fast X” and “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts,” which rank among the most anticipated despite featuring not a single caped crusader.

Are audiences finally tired of superhero stories? Some Hollywood insiders say Yes. “You’re used to maybe one or two Marvel movies a year alongside one DC movie,” said a top movie studio executive who declined to be named. “Now you’re going to see so many per year that they are losing some of their luster, especially when factoring streaming shows [like ‘The Peacemaker’ and ‘Moon Knight'”].

Noting the shift in box office results, Box Office Pro analyst Shawn Robbins observed: “The butter is being more evenly spread out on the bread.”

transformers rise of beasts
transformers rise of beasts
Comic book films flew high, but other franchise titles flew higher
Last year’s superhero films earned around $4.06 billion or around 15.6% of the global total, according to Box Office Mojo. Comparatively, such films earned $5 billion in 2017 while only making up 12.5% of the $40 billion global total. In 2018, superhero films earned $7.3 billion, and jumped up to comprising 18% of the $41 billion global box office.

President of IMAX Entertainment Megan Colligan said that “superhero movies will likely continue to be the bedrock, given their passionate global fan bases and sheer volume.”

The likes of “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” and “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” are expected to pull their weight in 2023, even if — as Robbins noted — “None of them scream automatic No. 1 movie of the year.”

Last year may have been the transition analysts were expecting in 2020 prior to the pandemic
The superhero fall-off in 2022 was expected to take place in 2020. At the time, few experts expected a year like 2019 when Disney ruled with $12 billion out of a $41 billion global annual total thanks to A-level Marvel installments, “Star Wars,” sequels, animated follow-ups and Katzenberg-era live-action remakes.

“Many big movies were moved out of 2019,” noted Robbins, “and then the likes of ‘No Time to Die,’ ‘Top Gun: Maverick,’ ‘Mulan’ and ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ ran smack-dab into a global pandemic.” The year 2020 began with blow-out success for the R-rated, non-fantastical “Bad Boys for Life” and a movie based on the “Sonic the Hedgehog” video game.

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Hollywood has mostly given up on non-Marvel, non-DC comic book superhero adaptations
Hollywood is realizing that comic book films not related to Marvel or DC are no safer than non-comic book franchise films. The likes of Vin Diesel’s “Bloodshot” or Daniel Craig’s “Cowboys and Aliens” bear that out. Ditto the streaming era, where Amazon’s “The Boys” is a smash but Netflix’s “Jupiter’s Legacy” was a costly single-season flop. Hollywood has no choice but to seek out other avenues — like video games — for theatrical franchise filmmaking.

Former entertainment journalist and current television showrunner (“Luke Cage,” “Ray Donovan”) Cheo Hodari Coker noted that Hollywood is finally learning some of the right lessons from MCU’s pop culture dominance.