The top three most popular/well-known superheores will always be Spider-Man, Superman, and Batman. These three characters have stood the test of time, and also unlike Iron Man/Deadpool/Wolverine/Captain America etc. these characters being popular does not rely on one specific actor.
The question is — out of the big three superheroes, who is the most popular in box office currently?
Batman's last film was The Batman, which was a decent success, doing $772M globally ($369M DOM and $403M OS) on a $200M budget, which generated a solid $177M in profit for Warner Brothers. It managed to outgross Spider-Man: Homecoming domestically and come close WW-China despite being much darker, longer, and having no MCU/Iron Man boost. The Batman Part II in October 2027 will probably see a boost due to the great reception of the first movie which washed away the bad taste from the DCEU/SnyderVerse Batman.
Superman's last movie was Superman, which was a modest success, doing $616M globally ($354M DOM and $262M OS) on a $225M budget, which is projected to generate ~$125M in profit for Warner Brothers. It was a pretty big hit domestically and a revival of the DC brand. It almost made more than the entire DCEU 2023 slate combined domestically ($354M vs $363M). However, overseas was the issue. However, it kinda bombed overseas. Despite grossing more than Aquaman 2 domestically in its opening weekend alone ($125M vs $124.4M), it grossed less overseas overall than Aquaman 2 ($262M vs $316M). However, the silver lining is that it was still the highest grossing superhero movie of 2025 overseas, as it made more than Captain America 4 ($215M), Thunderbolts ($192M), and Fantastic Four ($249M). With China/Russia/SK being USELESS, superhero movies doing meh OS is the overall trend and not specific to Superman.
Spider-Man's last movie was Spider-Man: No Way Home, which was an absolute global megahit, grossing $1.912B globally ($805M DOM and $1.107B OS without China) on a $200M budget, which generated a ~$700M+ profit, thereby still making it the most profitable movie (yes, movie, not just MCU movie) post-Endgame. It opened to $260M DOM, which managed to topple The Force Awakens as the biggest December opening weekend ever and is still the largest non-Endgame OW ever. Its domestic total of $805M is only behind Endgame ($858M) and The Force Awakens ($936M) in the all time chart. It is estimated the movie sold ~70M tickets domestically, which is the 5th most tickets sold ever for a movie in the 21st century. It is only behind the mega hits of The Dark Knight (72M), Avatar 1 (74M), Avengers: Endgame (83.5M), and The Force Awakens (89M). No Way Home's overseas minus China total of $1.107B is higher than Infinity War ($993M) and The Force Awakens ($1.007B) and its worldwide minus China total is higher than Infinity War ($1.672B) and only a little behind Force Awakens ($1.944B). With a China release, No Way Home would have done around $2.2-2.3B worldwide.
by CivilWarMultiverse
7 Comments
Its spiderman and it will always be spiderman. Children love spiderman above all others.
This poll shouldn’t even be close. There’s one OBVIOUS answer.
I feel like you know the answer already
Spider-Man is the only character that even its worst movies make a lot of money.
Spider-Man, by far. Look at the box office results, worldwide ticket sales, and especially merchandise sales for Spidey if you want proof.
It’s always going to be Spiderman>Batman>Superman.
I’d argue Deadpool should be in over weak ass Superman.