Bruce Almighty said:
Spider-Man has made more money than Batman with fewer movies. Not saying he's a bigger icon, but he belongs in the conversation.
Was curious about this, so I charted it in excel.
I took just the mainline movies for each, so didn't count Joker, Into the Spiderverse, or any of the JL or Avengers.
Luckily it worked out to 7 movies for each.
Here's what I got...
BATMANDomestic:Highest grossing film - TDK, $533 M
Lowest grossing film - Batman & Robin, $107 M
Average per film - $270 MTotal - $1.892 BWorldwide:Highest grossing film - TDKR, $1.082 B
Lowest grossing film - Batman & Robin, $238 M
Average per film - $527 MTotal - $3.692 BSPIDER-MANDomestic:Highest grossing film - Spider-Man, $403 M
Lowest grossing film - Amazing SM 2, $202 M
Average per film - $328 MTotal - $2.302 BWorldwide:Highest grossing film - Far From Home, $1.130 B
Lowest grossing film - Amazing SM 2, $709 M
Average per film - $853 MTotal - $5.974 BCouple of interesting things stuck out to me.
1. Interesting that for all their success, there's only one billion dollar movie in each franchise. (TDKR and FFH)
2. Neither of those billion dollar movies was the highest grosser domestically. (TDK and SM)
3. Didn't realize how badly Batman & Robin did. ($107 M domestic, $238 M WW) This one brought the average way down for Batman.
Of course, it's worth mentioning that the top half of Batman movies came out in the 90's, so inflation plays a huge factor here. I'm betting that inflation adjusted numbers would show the two franchises to be pretty neck and neck, domestically.
But worldwide, Spider-Man is a very clear winner. A whole $2B+ over the Batman franchise. And $709 M as your floor is pretty impressive.
I do think both franchises have guaranteed $1B movies coming up in the next year.