Where the Data Ranks 2016’s Comic Book Films
The summer movie season is wrapping up and we’ve seen an interesting year when it comes to comic book films. For months debates have raged as to who is more successful, Marvel or DC, which movies were successes, and which were flops. The answers aren’t so simple and black and white, which is why I like to turn to data to give actual rankings as to who were winners and losers.
So far this year, seven films have been released based on comic books (counting Batman: The Killing Joke). This feature will be weekly until the end of the year, as some films are still in the box-office and there’s till more to come.
Of note:
- Suicide Squad now stands at $744.9 million. It’s $3 million shy of X-Men: Days of Future Past‘s worldwide gross. But, the film has had a sudden drop from domestic theaters making it more difficult for the film to make up that gap. It’s still possible, and the film earned about $500,000 over the past week. A another month or two and it might pull it off.
- DC’s films continue to expand the gap when it comes to average domestic earning compared to Marvel. DC’s three films average $315.3 million a film domestically compared to Marvel’s $307.9 million. Internationally, Marvel earns $479.6 million and DC earns $446.8 million. With Suicide Squad still earning money, it’ll be interesting to see where these numbers wind up when it ends its run and how things will be impacted when Doctor Strange finishes its run.
- Speaking of Doctor Strange, the film opened in foreign markets to $86 million. It is not included in this week’s stats, but will be included in next week’s once it opens domestically.
Here’s where this year’s movie crop stands as far as the actual numbers. Numbers are presented with and without The Killing Joke which did not have an international run, so was not included in that average to start:
Total Domestic Gross: $1.667 billion ($1.663 billion without Killing Joke)
Total International Gross: $2.680 billion
Worldwide Gross: $4.347 billion ($4.344 billion without Killing Joke)
Total Reported Budgets: $1.050 billion ($1.046 billion without Killing Joke)
Total “Profit”: $3.298 billion ($3.298 billion without Killing Joke)
Average Domestic Gross: $238.2 million ($277.2 million without Killing Joke)
Average International Gross: $446.7 million
Average: Worldwide Gross: $621 million ($723.9 million without Killing Joke)
Average Budget: $149.9 million ($174.3 million without Killing Joke)
Average Profit: $471.1 million ($549.6 million without Killing Joke)
Now that we have those numbers down we can get a better idea as to how films have actually done this year. Below are various rankings of where films stand so far and if the films are above average (green) or below average (red):

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