According to Wall Street, Spider-Man is still Hollywood’s most valuable superhero property. The character may have had some trouble in recent installments, but 247 Wall St. has broken all of this down.
Per the report:
Speaking of Disney, the Mouse House paid $4 billion in 2009 to acquire Marvel Entertainment, the owner of Marvel Studios. Disney now owns the rights to substantially all the superheroes created at Marvel since the late 1930s, with one very significant exception: Spider-Man. Columbia Pictures, a division of Sony Corp. (NYSE: SNE) paid a reported $7 million to Marvel in 1999 after Cannon Films, which had purchased the rights to Spider-Man in the mid-1980s, went bankrupt and the rights reverted to Marvel.
Marvel Studios released its first title, “Iron Man,” in 2008, the year before Disney bought Marvel. That was also the first film in a grouping that the studio now calls the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Ten films have been released so far in the series, and domestic ticket sales on those 10 movies total $2.96 billion.
Worldwide, the 10 films have grossed $7.36 billion, and that total is expected to get significantly bigger with the domestic release this week of the 11th film in the series, “Avengers: Age of Ultron.” The 12th film in the MCU is “Ant-Man,” which is scheduled for release on July 15. In addition to these 12 films, another 10 are either in pre-production or development to carry the MCU out to the summer of 2019.
One other studio has had blockbuster results from comic book superheroes as well: Warner Bros. and parent Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) have rights to both Batman and Superman, and with the two characters are slated to appear together on the big screen in March 2016 in “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice,” the studio looks to be set for another big payday.
When you look at the all-time box office grosses, it’s not really a surprise, given that the Sam Raimi Spider-Man films were hugely successful – to the tune of $3.96 billion. Batman comes in at #2 and X-Men at #3.