Marvel Movies Box Office Battle on National Superhero Day

by Ray Keating

The Keating Files – April 28, 2020

(I originally published this piece at my DisneyBizJournal.com site, but thought it would be worth posting at the Keating Files as well. It’s hopefully a fun read!)

Today, April 28, is “National Superhero Day.” And on this date, it seems fitting to get into one of those arguments many of us engaged in as kids. You know, who is the best superhero? This superhero could beat up this other superhero. Oh, yeah? And so on. 

Except we’re going to narrow our fighting words, so to speak, to how powerful the various Marvel Cinematic Universe’s superheroes have been at the box office. Where do Disney’s MCU movies rank in terms of the amount of revenue raked in at the box office? 

The answer can be found in the following table, which ranks each of the 23 Marvel movies (so far) according to the estimated worldwide box office numbers in 2019 inflation-adjusted U.S. dollars.

Rank –  Real Box Office	Release Date	MCU Film	Worldwide Box Office –  Estimated in Real  2019 US Dollars
1	4/26/19	Avengers: Endgame	$2,797,800,564
2	4/27/18	Avengers: Infinity War	$2,085,474,952
3	5/4/12	The Avengers	$1,691,224,912
4	5/1/15	Avengers: Age of Ultron	$1,513,352,493
5	2/16/18	Black Panther	$1,371,318,517
6	5/3/13	Iron Man 3	$1,333,823,823
7	5/6/16	Captain America: Civil War	$1,228,486,127
8	3/8/19	Captain Marvel	$1,129,729,839
9	7/2/19	Spider-Man: Far From Home	$1,129,210,469
10	7/7/17	Spider-Man: Homecoming	$918,001,794
11	5/5/17	Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2	$906,473,402
12	11/3/17	Thor: Ragnarok	$890,667,135
13	8/1/14	Guardians of the Galaxy	$834,535,230
14	4/4/14	Captain America: The Winter Soldier	$771,499,819
15	5/7/10	Iron Man 2	$728,266,984
16	11/4/16	Doctor Strange	$720,510,624
17	11/8/13	Thor: The Dark World	$707,414,562
18	5/2/08	Iron Man	$694,849,347
19	7/6/18	Ant-Man and the Wasp	$634,435,712
20	7/17/15	Ant-Man	$559,663,516
21	5/6/11	Thor	$510,687,219
22	6/22/11	Captain America: The First Avenger	$421,175,245
23	6/13/08	The Incredible Hulk	$315,349,958

Source: Data from the-numbers.com. Calculations by author.

I guess no one should be surprised by the fact that The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes have proven to be mightiest at the box office.

Of course, what a ranking like this leads to is the inevitable “Yeah, but...” debate. In particular, yeah, but this doesn’t mean that this ranking necessarily reflects a ranking of the best MCU films. Let that debate begin! I’ll start by noting that I think that the top five MCU movies (not necessarily in order) are: Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: The First Avenger, Avengers: Endgame, Avengers: Infinity War, and Guardians of the Galaxy.

And thankfully, there are more Marvel movies on the way to add to the incredible box office tally – in 2019 dollars, the MCU films have earned a total of $23.9 billion, so far – and to spice up the debate about which are the best and worst movies in the series.

And if you’re looking ahead, here’s the latest announced Marvel universe movies with scheduled release dates (according to Disney and various media reports):

Black Widow – November 6, 2020

The Eternals – February 12, 2021

Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings – May 7, 2021

Spider-Man 3 – November 5, 2021 

Thor: Love and Thunder – February 11, 2022

Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness – March 25, 2022

Black Panther II – May 6, 2022

Captain Marvel 2 – June 8, 2022

Ant-Man 3 – no date announced

Guardians of the Galaxy 3 – no date announced

Enjoy, and happy National Superhero Day!

__________

Ray Keating is a columnist, economist, podcaster and entrepreneur.  You can order his new book Behind Enemy Lines: Conservative Communiques from Left-Wing New York  from Amazon or signed books at RayKeatingOnline.com. His other recent nonfiction book is Free Trade Rocks! 10 Points on International Trade Everyone Should Know. Keating also is a novelist. His latest novels are  The Traitor: A Pastor Stephen Grant Novel, which is the 12^th book in the series, and the second edition of Root of All Evil? A Pastor Stephen Grant Novel with a new Author Introduction. The views expressed here are his own – after all, no one else should be held responsible for this stuff, right?

Also, tune in to Ray Keating’s podcasts – the PRESS CLUB C Podcastand the Free Enterprise in Three Minutes Podcast 

National Superhero Day is the perfect time to read Ray Keating’s HEROES AND VILLAINS: A PASTOR STEPHEN GRANT SHORT STORY. The Kindle editionis on sale for only $2.99!