Who is more popular with moviegoers, Spider-Man or the X-Men? Considering that Sony’s Spider-Man franchise has grossed nearly $4 billion at the worldwide box office and Fox’s X-Men movies have grossed just over $3 billion worldwide, it’s an easy win for the webcrawler. But the more important question right now is which one is the healthier franchise. That is, if you were a movie executive, which franchise would you rather your studio control for the foreseeable future? Well, you might not want to pick Peter Parker without considering the performances of each franchise’s latest sequel.
The two franchises had two key parallels before this year: the third movie in each franchise was the highest grossing worldwide (2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand and 2007’s Spider-Man 3), yet both were widely considered by fans to be awful franchise-killers. If we don’t count the first Wolverine solo movie, both franchises essentially relaunched with a fourth movie featuring brand new casts (2011’s X-Men: First Class and 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man) that were lower grossing than the previous film, but far better received.
But that’s where the franchises’ fortunes diverged. Critically, The Amazing Spider-Man was generally well-received (at least better than Spider-Man 3) but the box office numbers didn’t reflect that. The Amazing Spider-Man earned $262 million in the U.S. and $752 million total worldwide. While those numbers are still great, in comparison to the previous Spider-Man films they were disappointing. Ten years earlier (with much cheaper ticket prices), Spider-Man grossed $403.7 million in the U.S. and $821.7 million worldwide. However, this year’s Amazing Spider-Man 2 is unlikely to beat even its predecessor’s numbers. After two months in theaters, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has grossed $200.9 million in the U.S. and $704.7 million worldwide. On the other hand, X-Men: First Class was considered a breath of fresh air by critics and revitalized the series to the point that it set up X-Men: Days of Future Past. Days of Future Past has since become the highest grossing X-Men movie worldwide ($724.7 million) and at $227.1 million in the U.S. is less than $8 million shy of passing X-Men: The Last Stand to break the X-Men movie domestic record also. Almost as importantly, an X-Men movie has finally crossed into Spider-Man territory at the box office.
Worldwide Box Office: Spider-Man vs. X-Men
Nonetheless, even counting the two Wolverine solo movies, the five-film Spider-Man franchise still has out-grossed the seven-film X-Men series by almost a billion dollars worldwide. While it’s undeniable that the Spider-Man franchise has grossed more money at the box office than the X-Men franchise, that billion dollar gap isn’t so big that the X-Men franchise cannot catch up, especially since the X-Men movies come out more frequently than the Spider-Man movies. It’s necessary to note that the average production and marketing budget of a Spider-Man film is $294 million, while the average cost of an X-Men movie is nearly $100 million less ($199 million). Once those extra millions that are spent on the production and marketing of Spider-Man movies are taken into account, that billion dollar gap shrinks considerably.
So what caused the nearly 21% drop in worldwide box office from 2007’s Spider-Man 3 to 2014’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2, despite many moviegoers preferring the Andrew Garfield films and willing to pay higher ticket prices to see them? Some have complained about how the reboot movies cover too much of the same ground as 2002’s Spider-Man with Spider-Man’s origin and the sequel’s reusing the Green Goblin/Harry Osborn storyline. Also, Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy was released before Marvel started releasing its own movies (Iron Man, which kicked off the Marvel Cinematic Universe, was released the year after Spider-Man 3). While many thought Raimi’s Spider-Man films stood head and shoulders above other early-to-mid 2000s Marvel movies like Fantastic Four, Daredevil, and Ghost Rider, Marvel’s own movies have become huge critical and box office hits and other superhero movies, like Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, have become more celebrated than the Raimi Spider-Man trilogy. Because of that competition, Spider-Man is no longer the most popular superhero at the multiplex.
On the other hand, while X-Men fans generally love the performances of original actors like Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellen, and Patrick Stewart, fans have been very accepting of replacement actors. Furthermore, X-Men actors – particularly Jackman, Stewart, and Famke Janssen – have been remarkably willing to make cameo appearances in X-Men movies that they don’t star in in order to maintain the continuity of the series. While it will undoubtedly be hard to replace Jackman as Wolverine when the time finally comes (which could be after the release of the next Wolverine solo movie, currently planned for a 2017 release), Fox has so far been successful replacing X-Men actors. Furthermore, with the vast roster of X-Men characters Fox can keep the sequels fresh by introducing new characters in each sequel, a luxury that a lone hero like Spider-Man doesn’t have.
But that hasn’t stopped Sony from planning to expand Spider-Man’s cinematic world. Sony is not just planning to make The Amazing Spider-Man 3 (set for a June 2016 release) and 4 (tentatively set for a June 2018 release), but is also planning to follow Fox’s X-Men lead by making spinoff movies about the popular super-villain Venom and the super-villain team The Sinister Six. However, how will Spider-Man spinoff movies without Spider-Man (or with Spider-Man in a limited role) perform at the box office with the youthful audience and families that flock to these movies to see Spider-Man? In addition, Andrew Garfield will turn 33 in 2016 and might not even want to do another Spider-Man related movie after his three-film contract ends with The Amazing Spider-Man 3. Are audiences willing to stick around for yet another Spider-Man actor the way they’ve stuck around for X-Men recasting?
Regardless, at the moment the X-Men franchise has the upper hand and the Spider-Man franchise has been in a downward trend. We’ll see if the next sequels, both scheduled for 2016, continue those trends or if their fortunes reverse again. But what’s your prediction on how the box office performances of these franchises will go or your take on why their fortunes have reversed? Let us know your take in the comments.
Recent Comments