{"id":35230,"date":"2025-07-30T20:52:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T20:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/35230\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T20:52:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T20:52:11","slug":"superhero-movies-bounced-back-from-the-bottom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/35230\/","title":{"rendered":"Superhero Movies Bounced Back From the Bottom"},"content":{"rendered":"

Movies<\/a>Movies<\/a>After a (mostly) terrible 2024, superhero blockbusters are back\u2014kind of\"\"Getty Images\/Marvel\/DC\/Ringer illustration\"\"<\/a>By Ben Lindbergh<\/a>July 30, 5:03 pm UTC \u2022 7 min<\/p>\n

The dust hasn\u2019t settled on Superman and The Fantastic Four: First Steps, the dueling DC and Marvel tentpoles that launched a new cinematic universe and MCU phase, respectively, this month. Both blockbusters have many more millions to add to their global box office totals. But, before August, Hollywood has already wrapped its big-screen superhero output for 2025. With four new films from Marvel and DC in the can, the biggest superhero moviemakers have embarked on a big-screen hiatus of almost a year, which will last until the scheduled debuts of Supergirl and Spider-Man: Brand New Day next summer.<\/p>\n

All of which makes this a fitting time for the latest installment of a favorite pop culture pastime: assessing the state of superhero movies.<\/p>\n

After years of \u201csuperhero<\/a> fatigue<\/a>\u201d fretting<\/a>, the genre bottomed out in 2024. Madame Web<\/a>, Venom: The Last Dance<\/a>, and Kraven the Hunter<\/a> brought an appropriately ignoble end to Sony\u2019s live-action Spider-Man Universe<\/a>. Joker: Folie \u00e0 Deux was a widely panned, money-losing<\/a>, mystifying follow-up to Todd Phillips\u2019s 2019 Oscar winner. DC Studios was idle following the last gasp of the DC Extended Universe, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, which came out in the closing days of 2023. And while last year\u2019s lone MCU movie Deadpool & Wolverine, found favor with theatergoers, who propelled it to $1.3 billion in ticket sales, the sequel\u2019s incessant recycling<\/a>, coupled with Robert Downey Jr.\u2019s return<\/a> to the Marvel franchise fold, cemented the perception that Kevin Feige\u2019s fiefdom was out of new ideas.<\/p>\n

More on This Summer\u2019s Slate of Superheroes <\/p>\n

‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps”Superman’<\/p>\n

More on This Summer\u2019s Slate of Superheroes <\/p>\n

‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps”Superman’<\/p>\n

Thus, the pressure was on for this year\u2019s big-screen slate of Captain America: Brave New World, Thunderbolts*, Superman, and The Fantastic Four\u2014particularly the last two, which would in turn inaugurate the new DC Universe and the MCU\u2019s Phase 6. As my colleague Daniel Chin wrote<\/a> in February, \u201cThese four films represent an important test for both studios\u2014and their competitors\u2014to gauge where their audiences\u2019 appetites stand and whether it\u2019s time for their parent companies to hit the panic button on their prospective plans.\u201d A second consecutive year of critical and financial flops would endanger DC\u2019s and Marvel\u2019s long-term plans, as well as the long-standing superhero hegemony in Hollywood.<\/p>\n

The good news for those suffering from superhero fatigue fatigue is that this quartet\u2014well, the last three releases, really, because Brave New World seemed to deepen the death spiral<\/a>\u2014has pulled off a collective creative rebound. The chart below shows the average Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic critics scores for live-action DC and Marvel movies (as classified<\/a> by Metacritic<\/a> dating back to 2002\u2014a pool of 102 movies, or an average of 4.25 per year The horizontal lines indicate the average ratings over the 24-year period.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The rightmost couple of columns tell a tale of two receptions: the worst of times, and \u2026 well, not quite the best of times, but above-average times, at least. Last year\u2019s average Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic ratings (40.6 and 34.8, respectively) were both easily the lowest in the nearly quarter-century sample. This year\u2019s (75.8 and 60.5, respectively) are the best since 2017 and 2021. Both of those 2025 figures are above the overall averages, and the Rotten Tomatoes score is the fourth highest in the whole span, after 2012, 2017, and 2014<\/p>\n

Although both sites are review aggregators with 100-point scales, they tackle their task differently. The scoring system at Rotten Tomatoes is binary: positive or negative, fresh or rotten. By contrast, Metacritic captures gradations of goodness by assigning a rating to each review and then calculating a weighted average of every review\u2019s ratings. Thus, they answer slightly different questions: Rotten Tomatoes reports what percentage of critics deemed a movie more good than bad, whereas Metacritic reports how good they deemed it. Some superhero movies have similar Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic ratings: for instance, Superman Returns, which sports a 72 at both sites. Other movies\u2019 respective scores diverge by 20-plus points.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s Superman (which has a 15-point difference between Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic ratings), Thunderbolts* (20), and First Steps (22) all have far higher Rotten Tomatoes scores than Metacritic scores, suggesting that while critics largely liked them, they didn\u2019t really love them. Hence this year\u2019s robust average rating at Rotten Tomatoes relative to Metacritic. Even at Metacritic, though, this year has been a bit better than average, which represents a significant recovery from the nadir of last year. After a triple bogey, even making par can be a big relief.<\/p>\n

Some of this modest bounce back stems simply from addition by subtraction: It doesn\u2019t hurt that Sony stopped making mostly terrible \u201cSpider-Man\u201d movies (sans Spider-Man himself). But for both better and worse, Marvel Studios and DC Studios themselves have also avoided extreme receptions. None of this year\u2019s not-so-fantastic four films placed among the top 20 Marvel and DC films made since 2002, per Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic. (Thunderbolts*, the best reviewed of the bunch, ranked 22nd and 27th, respectively.) But none of them entered the bottom 20, either. (Brave New World wound up 29th worst and 22nd worst, respectively.) Compared with the lows of last year, unspectacular competence seems like a win.<\/p>\n

Movie studios, of course, care more about the bottom line than about the critical consensus. In that area, this year\u2019s movies have been more of a mixed bag. In terms of revenue, Thunderbolts* is one of the lowest-grossing<\/a> MCU films (especially after adjusting for inflation), which Feige attributed<\/a> to its characters\u2019 TV origins<\/a>. Brave New World didn\u2019t do much better, which Feige blamed<\/a> on the fact that it was \u201cthe first [Captain America movie] without Chris Evans.\u201d The creative turmoil<\/a> and tangled narrative roots can\u2019t have helped: The movie was a quasi-sequel<\/a> to three old and\/or mediocre Marvel movies and shows, 2008\u2019s The Incredible Hulk and 2021\u2019s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Eternals.<\/p>\n

On the plus side, Superman posted the strongest opening<\/a> for a solo Superman movie and has raked in more than $500 million worldwide in three-plus weeks, which Feige held up<\/a> as proof that the genre\u2019s problem is \u201cclearly not superhero fatigue.\u201d First Steps, which launched last weekend, also enjoyed a record<\/a> opening for a film featuring its eponymous superheroes, coming in just a curly forelock<\/a> behind<\/a> Superman\u2019s<\/a> opening gross. But because superhero blockbusters don\u2019t draw as well in China as they used to\u2014for reasons<\/a> unrelated<\/a> to \u201cfatigue\u201d\u2014their international earnings potential isn\u2019t what it once was. On the whole, then, this year has brought more middle-of-the-road results in this respect, too: no flops as disastrous<\/a> as The Marvels, but no huge hits on the order of Deadpool & Wolverine.<\/p>\n

If we had to characterize this year\u2019s big-screen superhero returns in a simplistic, Rotten Tomatoes\u2013style way, we would have to pronounce them fresh, not rotten. The question is whether we\u2019re seeing a lasting course correction or a dead cat bounce<\/a>. I\u2019d lean toward the former, although (as usual) it may be a bit of both.<\/p>\n

For one thing, Superman doesn\u2019t believe in letting cats<\/a>\u2014or squirrels<\/a>\u2014die. For another, both DC Studios and Marvel Studios appear to have plans in place to steer clear of the excess and aimlessness that have plagued their recent pasts. Superman is the first salvo<\/a> in James Gunn\u2019s<\/a> concerted effort to produce a DC universe as well orchestrated and cohesive as Marvel\u2019s was. In terms of story, Marvel has momentum<\/a> for the first time in a while. A crew of New Avengers is assembled, Marvel\u2019s First Family<\/a> has been successfully introduced, and a \u201creset<\/a>\u201d to a \u201csingular timeline<\/a>\u201d is coming, along with two new Avengers movies and the company\u2019s trump card: the X-Men<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On the small screen, results remain highly variable: This year\u2019s Marvel offerings have ranged from Ironheart<\/a> (whose reviews were, in Metacritic terms, \u201cmixed or average\u201d) to Daredevil: Born Again<\/a> (\u201cgenerally favorable\u201d) to Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man<\/a> (generally, um, more favorable). There are three more Marvel series to come this year, plus DC\u2019s second season of Peacemaker\u2014which will be followed next year by the highly<\/a> anticipated<\/a> Lanterns. All in all, though, the superhero assembly lines have slowed, as the movie release calendar shows. The chart below displays a rolling two-year average of the number of live-action DC and Marvel movies released each year extrapolated to include the four confirmed qualifying films for 2026, plus the two for 2027 (which could be postponed or supplemented).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Critically and financially, these film franchises peaked in the late 2010s, when the ultra-lucrative<\/a> Avengers: Endgame delivered the climax of the MCU\u2019s Infinity Saga. But the pinnacle for sheer volume came a few years later, as the \u201cfatigue\u201d drumbeat built. The architects of superhero cinema have been<\/a> vocal<\/a> about the downsides of that rush to release: \u201cFor the first time ever, quantity trumped quality,\u201d Feige admitted<\/a> this month. A lower quantity doesn\u2019t guarantee higher quality. But it should help the two titans maintain more consistent standards while also making it more likely that the superhero supply doesn\u2019t outstrip audience demand\u2014as long as the urge to evade catastrophe doesn\u2019t stifle the franchises\u2019 originality. Risk-averse storytelling poses potential threats, too.<\/p>\n

The it\u2019s so over\/we\u2019re so back<\/a> superhero reaction cycle, in which each movie is derided as a death knell for the genre or hailed as triumphant proof of its life, is tiresome and tends toward hyperbole and recency bias The reality is more nuanced: a partial superhero recovery, not a complete collapse or a full return to form. As Substacker the Entertainment Strategy Guy concluded<\/a> in February, just before the beginning of the latest flurry of films, \u201cSuperheroes continue to be a bankable genre at the box office, but the 2018 to 2019 time frame represented a peak superheroes won\u2019t easily get back to.\u201d<\/p>\n

The creative and financial heyday of superheroes has probably<\/a> passed<\/a>, but being a bit past one\u2019s prime doesn\u2019t dictate a swift descent from dominance to obsolescence. There seems to be plenty of life left in big-screen superheroes, who are here for the long haul. But after a boom-and-bust half decade, 2025 has hearkened back to the old normal\u2014and, maybe, established a new normal, too.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Ben Lindbergh<\/p>\n

<\/a>Ben is a writer, podcaster, and editor who covers culture and sports. He hosts \u2018Effectively Wild\u2019 at FanGraphs and previously wrote for FiveThirtyEight and Grantland, served as editor-in-chief of Baseball Prospectus, and authored \u2018The MVP Machine\u2019 and \u2018The Only Rule Is It Has to Work.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MoviesMoviesAfter a (mostly) terrible 2024, superhero blockbusters are back\u2014kind ofGetty Images\/Marvel\/DC\/Ringer illustrationBy Ben LindberghJuly 30, 5:03 pm UTC…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35231,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[49,48,75,337],"class_list":["post-35230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}