We’re deep into 2024 territory as of the time of writing, but the situation at the 2024 box office is not really improving. We knew that Inside Out 2 did an amazing job and that it basically saved the box office this summer, and Deadpool & Wolverine continued on that same high note, passing the $1 billion mark recently. These are the only two movies that have passed that landmark so far this year, but the problem seems to be much deeper, at least when superhero movies are concerned.
Namely, as it turns out, in the post-COVID era, superhero movies have been doing horribly – from just bad to abysmally bad – at the box office, and it seems that the issue might be deeper than everyone thought.
Namely, despite some well-received movies, superhero movies are struggling to succeed at the box office – both Marvel’s and DC’s movies – in the post-COVID era, whereas other movies that don’t have that genre background have been quite successful. What could be the reason?
Before we continue our analysis, take a look at this video that was prepared by our friends from Culture Crave:
8 films have crossed $1B at the worldwide box office post-covid 🍿
Rank em’ ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/Lw1YZPTjrP— Culture Crave 🍿 (@CultureCrave) August 13, 2024
As you can see, in the post-COVID era, eight movies in total managed to pass the $1 billion mark. Among them are only two superhero movies, and the first one was released way back in 2021, and it was Spider-Man: No Way Home, which was so successful because it brought all the three Spider-Men to the big screen. So, between 2021 and this year’s Deadpool & Wolverine, no superhero movie managed to pass this mark in the post-COVID era, which seems disappointing.
Before the pandemic, superhero movies easily reached this mark or came very close to surpassing it, but they have been struggling since. On the other hand, animated films, as well as other genres, have had a lot more success, which could be a sign that superhero movies are, indeed, dying out.
Although everyone involved keeps claiming that the so-called “superhero fatigue” is not happening – especially Kevin Feige – it is a fact that people are not rushing to the theaters to watch superhero movies as they did before. Venom flopped; DC’s movies became better with the “death” of the DCEU, but nothing happened at the box office; and Marvel has been sending out failure after failure until Deadpool & Wolverine.
We don’t know how these trends will go in the future, but the numbers are undeniable and they are definitely a signal to the big studios to reconsider their plans and approaches for the future.
