Who is the most commercially successful superhero: Superman, Batman or Spider-Man?

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Ghostodoofus2

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Poll Who is the most commercially successful superhero: Superman, Batman or Spider-Man? (59 votes)

Superman 15%
Batman 22%
Spider-Man 63%
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Ghostodoofus2

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I think Spider-Man. These numbers are from 2014 and Spider-Man was already number 1 then, he has only gotten bigger since with two new movies and a new game (two if you count the Miles Morales game). No Way Home will put him on an even higher level.

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Sophisticated_Ignorance

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The one that two completely unrelated movies in the same year.

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Ghostodoofus2

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#3  Edited By Ghostodoofus2
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DemarG

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The modern era goes to Spiderman that's for sure.

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vjbthe3

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@christianrapper: bat merch is just more stylish, everybody can wear the mask, but I don't think anyone wants too. That being said, I see more kid Spidey clothing than kid bat clothing

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krisbishop

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#7 krisbishop  Moderator

Spider-Man in recent years but Batman overall.

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Ghostodoofus2

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@krisbishop: Makes sense, Batman has more accessories like Batarangs and Batmobiles.

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deactivated-629d3023b5b49

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Spiderman is more popular nowdays thanks to Raimi's trilogy, the games and the other movies, before that it was Batman. And probably Superman before him.

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acxr1

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Spiderman is more popular nowdays thanks to Raimi's trilogy, the games and the other movies, before that it was Batman. And probably Superman before him.

Spider-Man TAS made the character popular and it was directly because of that cartoon that the Raimi trilogy got greenlit in the first place.

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geekryan

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Spider-Man in recent years but Batman overall.

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Antebellum

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batsy

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Ghostodoofus2

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@geekryan: Yeah, but it's always been close between Bats and Spidey since the early 2000s. The hype for No Way Home makes Spidey unmistakably #1 right now but I think once The Batman comes out, the two will be close to being equal again.

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sabracadabra

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I think Spider-Man. These numbers are from 2014 and Spider-Man was already number 1 then, he has only gotten bigger since with two new movies and a new game (two if you count the Miles Morales game). No Way Home will put him on an even higher level.

if we are referring to just merch, than i would like to know who exactly is buying spiderman merch? i very rarely see anyone with sm merch. ususally just little kids with SM schoolbags. on the other hand , isee batman and superman mrch all the time. t-shirts, baseball caps, etc.

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mandabub

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Spiderman

Batsy

Superlame doesn't belong here lmfao

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Ghostodoofus2

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Ghostodoofus2

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M

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B

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PaleBlood

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#20  Edited By PaleBlood
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You can clearly see from the above chart that in all time Spider-Man is around billion ahead of Bats even though the latters 23 year headstart. Superman doesn't belong here.

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beatboks1

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@ghostodoofus2:

It's only a 2 way race between Spiderman and Batman. I would say Spidey sells more merchandise but Batman has greater availability of other revenue sources to balance it. Spidey has a few video games on the market Bats has a lot more. Bats has more cartoon series that are still being aired and played for. Both have a few trilogy movie series. Both had live action TV shows that lasted as long as each other. Bats has more spin off TV that wouldn't work without "Batman" like Gotham, Pennyworth.

I'd say it's hard to call it for one over the other but Superman isn't even close to being in the running IMHO

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beatboks1

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@paleblood:

The graph has obvious errors. Onnthe Batman line there is nothing what so ever for video games. Arkham city alone made over $600m. Arkham Asylum made $35.5m, arkhum Knight $5m, christ lego Batman games have made WB $2 billion. There are over 25 Batman based video games and 6bof them have made 3 billion but they aren't on that graph, why?

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incursion2

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Your friendly neighborhood spider man

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PaleBlood

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#25  Edited By PaleBlood

@beatboks1: Spider-Man movies has also been doing much better than Batman ones but the graph still had Batman ahead, so that I think looking into overall is better. Also you say that there is over 25 Batman game like Spider-Man certainly doesn't. For you to not know Marvel's Spider-Man already outsold the highest grossing Batman game Arkham City after only 10 months and have probably great contribution to sell of consoles too. Also Spider-Man games unlike the Batman games which only gone mainstream after Lego Batman/Arkham Asylum relaesed have been for 20+ years. Spisder-Man 2000, Spider-Man Enter Electro, Spider-Man all are critically acclaimed games before Batman ones came into mainstream. And Edge of Time, Shattered Dimensions and Ultimate Spider-Man are there too.

You can also see that in below chart that in top 10 selled videogames from Marvel and DC there is 4 Batman and 3 Spider-Man ones, seems like mostly a counter arguement but whatever :)

No Caption Provided

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Necromancer76

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Spider-Man for sure

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beatboks1

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@paleblood:

The reason Batman movies are ahead is because there take is altered for inflation. It's done that way to make it a consistent and equal figure. The $411m that Batman made in 1989 with inflation would have been worth $1.4b in 2002 when the 1st spiderman movie was released (which made $825m). You can't compare the straight dollars without this adjustment. In today's money that $411m is equal to about $2.2b.

In 1989 I made a yearly salary of $21k. I was in a higher position than I am now (having stepped down from a manager to a worker) and now make $55k. I could buy a scotch and coke for about $2.50 that now costs $8. I could buy a case of beer for $16.50 that is now $52.

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PaleBlood

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@beatboks1: No. Yes that the Tim Burton Batman movies would have had higher box office numbers today due to inflation but they would still likely fall behind of TDK and TDKR unless you can show where 1.4 billion thing came from. Also the same case could be said for Raimi Trilogy which is already higher than TDK trilogy in box offfice without adjusting inflation and with the inflation added added they should be certain amount ahead. Also not to mention that abysmal jump from not even 400 million grossing BB to first billion-grossing superhero movie TDK(not adjusted for inflation) that happened due to Heath Ledger's death. Also original Burton Batman movie was an expection in the box office that is certain amount higher than it's sequels.

Hell! Even if like you said that Batman movies made better in box office you could still not explain the 6 billion gap with Spider-Man ones. It's also very hard to have an arguement who was created 23 years to be fall behing too.

I am also not getting the difference between what @ghostodoofus2 said as " most commerically succesfull" and the most popular at all. You need to popular in order to be commerical succesfull, that's literally it.

Also I am not getting what other people saying by all time too there is clearly above chart showing of all time franchise grosses and Spider-Man is still at the very top of Superhero chamber. He is the all time most popular superhero supported by the facts.

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RedHotStar

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Definitely Spidey

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beatboks1

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@paleblood:

1. I need to correct an error. I used an inflation calculator on line that had a graph result. On that graph the line ended up at 1.4 for 2002 which I assumed was 1.4b. I now see that it was what $1 from 89 was worth in 2002. That makes the Burton movie more like 600k.

https://smartasset.com/investing/inflation-calculator#7xim86mUxx

2. My issue is that the graph simply can't have accounted for everything. Like I said it doesn't have ANY video game revenue for Batman. That simply isn't possible.

In 80s there were about 3 Batman video games plus 1 he featured in and 2 Spiderman games plus 2 he featured in.

In the 90s there were 13 Batman video games and 11 for Spidey.

In the 2000s 13 Batman games and 5 for Spiderman.

In 10s there were 11 Batman Video games to Spiderman's 6.

As I've already said the lego Batman games made WB $2 billion alone. The various Arkham games add another billion plus that isn't accounted for.

On the graph also it is showing only 40 million for TV revenue for Batman. There have been 13 TV shows based on the Batman franchise (14 if you count Batwoman). The 1966 Batman Series was syndicated in almost every country innthe world and still has re-runs in most. For the feature length movie that was a part of that show alone the studio made $4 million. They played Adam West (only one star of the show) $2000 per half hour episode. The man died worth $8 million despite only staring in about 4 other films that no one remembers. Due to his percentage from syndication. Burt Ward (who played Robin and voiced the character in a few Catoons) is worth $25m, Ceasar Romero (Joker) was worth $5m, and the Penquin $3m. Frank Gorshin (riddler) was worth 1.5m. Julie Newmar (one of the thre Catomen from the series) is woth $100m. Lee Meriwether (the catwoman most remembered) is worth $200m.

A single TV series from 1966 earned more than the total listed for Batman's TV revenue. Not to mention that Netflix paid $1.75m for each of Gotham's 82 episodes. So one one single party out of 1000s airing that TV show paid $143.5m dollars. So are we supposed to beleive that every free to air and pay TV network that aired the show around the globe got paid by WB to do so?

Neither Batman or Spiderman are showing any figures at all for comics. Both have supported multiple titles for decades.

I don't deny for a second that Spidey would take the merchandise spot. I don't think by much but he would. I suspect he would the Movies box office also despite the fact that we've had 8 Spiderman Movies (until no way home comes out) to 10 Batman movies (not counting the TV one or Batman Bs Supes). The first 2 of course were in the 40s.

To many other parts are just glaring inaccuracies onnthe graph.

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beatboks1

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@paleblood:

This

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.chicagotribune.com/sns-201410311731reedbusivarietyn1201344529-20141031-story,amp.html

Is why Netflix had to pay so much for Gotham.

It's premier episode netted Fox 22 million viewers in the 1st month. 8.3 million on debut plus the rest in catch up, VOD, etc.

Accoding to 2 sites I found 1 million viewers of a TV show nets the TV station between 400,000 to 450,000 in ad revenue for the episode. That episode net 3 3 to 3.7 mill for fox alone on debut. For most of the first season they had live viewers numbers of 4.5 to 6 mill. There's no way they didn't have to pay well for the show and certainly to renew it. In season 5 it's viewership dropped to around 2.7 mill so by then bot so much. Season 1 and 2 of that TV Show alone had to make WB more than the 40 mill listed in the graph

1966 Batman had ratings numbers of 26 to 29 out of 49 in season 1 and half of season 2. It's numbers dropped at the end of S2 to around 22/23. With all the reruns and the 3.9 mill that the TV movie made alone, it would be a quarter of the 40 mill alone.

Add to that Batman Brave and the bold had Nielson viewer numbers of 2 mill in 2009, Batman Beyomd literally saved WB kids ratings spot.

I found a site that has the the box office numbers for the franchises

https://m.the-numbers.com/movies/franchises

Batman is number 4 behind MCU Star Wars and James bond with 24 movies listed as part of the franchise, including Joker and Catwoman. That's without doing any adjusting for inflation to equalise.

https://m.the-numbers.com/movies/franchise/Batman

Spidey is number 6 after Harry Potter with 10 movies including Venom

Bare in mind up until I started looking all this up I didn't think Batman won (I now do though with all the numbers I've found) but that it was very very close between him and spiderman.

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Thor-Parker

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#32  Edited By Thor-Parker

Spider-Man, and this isn't really a matter of opinion, it's a fact, the numbers speak for themselves.

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beatboks1

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Gotta admit, this question has really piqued my interest and had me doing a lot of google searching to research it.

Another glaring oversight on the graph that I've found. Batman home entertainment isn't listed on the graph. Yet "the numbers" shows domestic (US only) DVD sales for the franchise are $773,353,443. Thats without figures for the Batman Brave and the bold cartoon series or the Batman Beyond series, or movies like Batman under the red hood that did $12m domestically on its own. Its also without the sales of DVDS for the Batman 1966 TV series which onnits own is $171,374,107 domestically only.  So domestic home media alone is easily over a billion given the figures we do know add up to $956m.  Usually world wide box office is equal to or about 1.2 to 1.3x domestic, I would assume DVD sales to be similar. Especially since Spidey's home entertainment is shown as $2.07b and his actual domestic sales are listed by the Numbers as  $659,526,604

https://m.the-numbers.com/movies/franchise/Batman

https://m.the-numbers.com/movies/franchise/Spider-Man

If you drop down video you can see the full breakdown.

So we have Batman's video games missing $3b plus (probably 3.5 a lot of those earlier games on NES, SNES, Sega, N64, and PSX/2 etc weren't as expensive.

We have over $2B of home entertainment revenue missing

We have a serious shortfall on TV income given Netflix alone paid $175m for Gotham. As it aired on the Fox network US, Nine Network and Foxtel pay TV service Au, CTV and M3 Canada, Channel 5 UK, Rte2 Ireland and TV2 New Zealand that's a lot more payments for it. My guess would be smaller markets like NZ only paid 100k per episode while Larger markets paid 300 to 400k. I mean the show got an average of 7.5m viewers US, 3m Canada, 3m UK, and 3M Au for its first season. That's 16.5 million viewers in only  4 markets and 3 of those markets population combined  is less than half the US population (it's really no wonder Netflix paid so much for the rights). If we say the average is 200,000 per episode times 100 episodes and 8 channels across those markets that $ 160 million.  Which on balance is probably light since Netflix paid for streaming rights in those same markets AFTER these networks had it first. Added to which many aired it more than  once and had catch up (Netflix only has the rights to stream a season after the network in that region has finished airing it). So a single TV show is at least 320 million earnings, probably well over 400m.  With all 10 cartoon series and other shows like 1966 Batman, Batwoman, Birds of Prey,  Pennyworth,  it would have to be at least 600m not 40m (some of those series like Batwoman and BoP didn't do so well and cartoons are usually cheaper because they appeal to the younger market without their own financial resources). Although the spiderman graph shows tv revenue of $880m and that's with only 10 cartoons and the single season of the 1977 live action Spiderman that unfortunately failed to get viewers (I liked it, not as much as incredible Hulk but it was OK, at least as good as the Shazam series of the same era).

There's no doubt Spidey takes the merchandise sales by a landslide. It wasn't the case when I was a kid with all the merchandise based of the Adam West TV series (I had a Utility belt with a shield, Bavarians and cuffs, both a Batman and Robin costume, action figures of Batman, Robin, Joker, catwoman, riddler and Penquin plus the metal batmobile, bat boat, and bat copter). His movies have also made more per film (even adjusted for inflation) given how many more films Batman has had.

I also think the number on the graph for Spiderman games is quite low. I think it's only taking into consideration more recent games. I had Spidey games on SNES, Sega MD, PSX, PS2 etc just like I had Batman games. The only console I ever had that I dont remember a game for either on was the Intellivision.

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byondeon

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SpiderMan, not even close

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MAZAHS117

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I feel like it’s either Batman or Spider-Man. Leaning towards Spidey