Have you heard the news? The upcoming DC mega-crossover is now no longer just loosely referred to as “Batman vs. Superman.” It now has an official title, “Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice,” an obvious reference to a pending assembly of the Justice League of America , now that at least three of the members will appear in this upcoming film (Wonder Woman will cameo as well).
That got me thinking about the past history of the two heroes at the box office. Here, they’ll be battling a bit onscreen as the film takes pages from The Dark Knight Returns (seen above), but how have their films fared against each other over the years?
The Reeves Era
We’ll start first with Superman’s early films, the Christopher Reeves era of the character. The four films of this time did very well at the box office back in the ’70s and ’80s (for the most part). Here’s how much they made globally:
Superman (1978) – Worldwide Gross: $300M
Superman II (1983) – Worldwide Gross: $108M
Superman III (1983) – Worldwide Gross: $59M
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) – Worldwide Gross: $11M
As you can see, it was something of a downward slope, but they still added up to a hefty sum.
Pre-Nolan Batman
Now we’ll turn to the ’80s/’90s era of Batman movies that involved Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher before Christopher Nolan took the reins.
Batman (1989) – Worldwide Gross: $411M
Batman Returns (1992) – Worldwide Gross: $266M
Batman Forever (1995) – Worldwide Gross: $336M
Batman and Robin (1997) – Worldwide Gross: $238M
Even if you taken into account inflation (which I don’t, because as time goes on, movies have seen dramatically increased competition from other forms of media, in my estimation), Batman’s quartet of films is quite ahead of Superman’s, partially due to a lack of global release of the later few Superman films (and also Quest for Peace was outrageously terrible, though the same can be said for Batman and Robin).
Superman Reboots
Now we turn to the most recent pair of Superman reboots, one which was widely considered something of a miss for the series, and the other which is now leading into this upcoming new-era DC universe.
Superman Returns (2006) – Worldwide Gross: $391M
Man of Steel (2013) – Worldwide Gross: $668M
Now that’s what you call a hit. Even if Man of Steel didn’t quite have the critical acclaim of other 2000s-era superhero films, it did incredibly well worldwide. But is it enough to give Superman the victory? Enter Nolan’s trilogy:
Nolan’s Dark Knight
Christopher Nolan created arguably one of the best film trilogies ever made in the form of his Dark Knight films. No one had much faith in the Batman reboot initially, and were skeptical of his decision to cast Heath Ledger as the Joker in the sequel, but needless to say, it turned out okay.
Batman Begins (2005) – Worldwide Gross: $374M
The Dark Knight (2008) – Worldwide Gross: $1.004B
The Dark Knight Rises (2012) – Worldwide Gross: $1.084B
Some of you may already suspect the winner, but let’s add up the totals here regardless.
Six Superman Films – $1.537B
Seven Batman Films – $3.713B
Batman takes it by more than two billion dollars using these metrics, more or less the gross of Nolan’s last two films alone.
But now, they’re joining forces for one film. Will Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice break every record seen here? We’ll have to wait and see.
[Photo via DC]
