Where the Data Ranks 2018’s Comic Book Films. Venom Debuts with $111 Million in China

Comic film adaptations are big dollars and we track how they do each week to see trends and what’s working and what’s not.

2018 is shaping up to be a record setting year for comic film adaptations. It looks like it’ll top 2017’s record year and then some. Currently, comic adaptations have earned $2.158 billion domestically, $3.343 billion internationally, $5.501 billion worldwide, with a “profit” of $4.579 billion. That’s off of 5 films. 2017, with 16 films, saw domestic earnings of $2.365 billion, international earnings of $3.755 billion, worldwide earnings of $6.120 billion, and “profits” of $4.442 billion. 2018 still has Aquaman and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse yet to open as well as a mysterious Deadpool film and those three should easily add another billion to this year’s total.

Venom brought in an estimated $4.9 million domestically to come in at #8 and bring its domestic total to $206.2 million. Internationally, the film opened in China earning an estimated $111 million. That’s the second highest debut ever for a superhero film there and Sony’s largest debut in the country. Internationally the film earned $118.2 million to bring that total to $467.3 million and $673.5 million.

With a budget of just $100 million, the film is already looking like it’ll be quite profitable and another success for Sony’s Spider-Man franchise which previously earned on average $318.8 million domestically, $488.4 million internationally, and $807.2 million worldwide. The film is likely to be the second worst performing Spider-Man related film for Sony but 5th (out of 7) currently internationally. The difference is the budget is almost half the other films allowing for a healthy profit. In fact, the film’s multiplier is the best of any Spider-Man film and will likely pass Avengers: Infinity War, the year’s best comic film, before it’s done. This past week it passed Black Panther‘s multiplier. How well the film does after its massive debut in China will be interesting and the movie potentially has another $100 million left in it before its run is up.

Ant-Man and the Wasp didn’t chart for the weekend but still earned about $2,000 internationally over the past week. It now stands at $216.6 million domestically, $405.8 million internationally, and $622.5 million worldwide.

The film has not only passed the original domestically (both adjusted and not-adjusted for inflation) but it also has passed it internationally. The film should keeping adding dollars to its total for the next month and is above $100 million over the original. The sequel has a budget of about $32 million more than the original so it’ll need to that to even out profitability.

Avengers: Infinity War gained some dollars. Avengers: Infinity War added about $10,000 to its international earnings.

Here’s where this year’s comic films stand as far as the actual numbers.

Total Domestic Gross: $2.158 billion
Total International Gross: $3.343 billion
Worldwide Gross: $5.501 billion
Total Reported Budgets: $897.1 million
Total “Profit”: $4.579 billion

Average Domestic Gross: $269.8 million
Average International Gross: $417.9 million
Average: Worldwide Gross: $687.6 million
Average Budget: $128.2 million
Average Profit: $559.5 million

Below is where the films released stand when it comes to being compared to this year’s averages. Those in green are above average while those below are red.