Superhero Fatigue Is Hitting Marvel and DC Differently | Charts
The upcoming “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” will be the last film in the DC Extended Universe — after that, the franchise gets a slightly less complicated title and, more importantly, a new CEO. James Gunn, the popular writer/director of Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” films and of the DCEU’s “The Suicide Squad, will helm the DC Universe, aka the DCU, a soft reboot of the DCEU.
Gunn’s reputation with fans and his pledge to maintain story continuity between movies, shows, and video games in the DCU make fans feel hopeful about the future. What’s more, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has finally begun to wobble after more than a decade of almost uninterrupted box office success. If there were ever a time for DC to overtake Marvel as a pop culture powerhouse, it would be this coming year.
But could Marvel’s recent troubles only be temporary? Or, even worse for the nascent DCU, could those troubles stem from superhero fatigue among American film audiences? We’re using Ranker Insights to trace how fans have felt about each of the 48 movies from each respective franchise since 2008, then using recent competitive Ranker movie lists to determine just how bright the future is from the DCU — and for superhero movies in general.
Marvel Is Down, But Not Out
Underwhelming box office performances and the legal troubles besetting star Jonathan Majors have many in Hollywood questioning whether Marvel can maintain its dominance of the modern film industry. Commentators have pointed to the 2020 pandemic as the start of the MCU’s troubles, when Disney executives looked to Marvel to flood the then-emerging Disney+ with new content, spreading the studio’s creative team thin. Ranker Insights data confirms that fans’ reception of MCU movies after 2020 took a hit, but not as big a hit as the hype would suggest.
People come to Ranker, the #1 source of crowdsourced rankings on the internet, to voice their opinions on their favorite movies, TV shows, celebrities, and more. We calculated the ratio of total votes for each of the 33 MCU movies indicating positive sentiment against those indicating negative sentiment — a metric called a “sentiment score,” very similar to an approval rating.
From the first “Iron Man,” Marvel Studios’ debut, up until 2019’s “Captain Marvel,” the average score for MCU movies was slightly higher at a little under 64%. From 2021’s “Black Widow” until “The Marvels,” the number drops down to 57%.
The fact that Phases 4 and 5 of the MCU caused the average sentiment score for the franchise to drop two points doesn’t exactly spell doom for Kevin Feige and company. After all, this latest spate of 10 movies included “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” which ties “Infinity War” for the highest sentiment score of the franchise. But because of their massive expense, Disney needs big wins from almost every movie to keep the machine running. While the game is far from lost, the MCU will need some significant scores in the near future if it wants to avoid permanent decline.
DC Has Nowhere to Go But Up
The performance of DCEU movies among film fans, by contrast, is far spottier. The inconsistency of these films’ reception matches the scattershot approach taken by DC, which produced movies with wildly varying styles, tones, and most notably, narrative universes. Even the high point, “Zack Snyder’s Justice League,” owes much of its popularity to antipathy both within the DC fanbase and toward DC executives.
Nobody at Warner Bros. Discovery will be surprised by the fact that the DCEU’s average sentiment score is 55%, two points lower than the MCU’s recent nadir (though they might cringe at the news that 2023’s three releases — “Shazam! Fury of the Gods,” “The Flash,” and “Blue Beetle” — average a dismal 41%). That’s why the studio has taken the drastic step of starting over with Gunn. But is the new CEO capable of reversing a trend that seems to be affecting both DC and its nemesis?
Gunn Has the Goods
Insights data indicates that moviegoers’ tolerance for spandex and superpowers is still very high when it comes to projects from James Gunn. His latest “Guardians of the Galaxy” film isn’t just the highest-rated Phase 5 MCU movie so far, it’s also ranked #2 on The Best Movies Of 2023, with only “Oppenheimer” ahead of it. “The Suicide Squad” has a sentiment score of 61%, while the spinoff series “Peacemaker” has one of 68%, higher than any DCEU movie ever made. Considering that these three projects, which together have an average score of 66%, all came out after 2020, there is solid evidence supporting the idea that Gunn can turn things around for DC.
But with both DC Entertainment and Marvel Studios in something of a holding pattern, it remains to be seen who will come out on top in the next few years. Both studios have struggled with the tension between maintaining quality and meeting deadlines, and both have promised to refocus on telling quality stories. In the end, the battle will likely come down to which of these rivals will be better at keeping that promise.
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