It’s always been Spider-Man and by some margin. Why was this even a question?
Exactly! It’s the reason Sony only sought rights to Spider-Man and not the entirety of the Marvel catalog. Marvel offered them nearly the entire pie at the time.
Not only that, but when Marvel offered Sony the rest of the catalog, it was absurdly cheap. Something like, give us an extra 20 bucks (slight exaggeration) and you can have ALL our characters, and Sony was still like, nahh, just Spidey, thanks.
Spider-Man has always been a popular character. I grew up first knowing about him not even from comics, but from him on Electric Company (PBS show usually after Sesame Street for a bit older kids).
Born in the late 70s, I barely read comics (wanted to buy candy, regret that now comics seem way better) but I thought about it recently and my favorite Marvel character is Spider Man, he was a geeky kid who rises up when given the opportunity. He excels at school and does his best to make his neighborhood better. There are few supers who were popular that had so many cartoons and a cheesy live action 70s show, heh I remember renting them thinking it was movies in the 80s.
I don’t know why anyone would think it’s even close, as a franchise, Spider-Man has had more movies and spin-offs (see what I did there) than anything else. The only one that comes close is X-Men and box office there hasn’t been stellar.
From boxofficemojo.com:
Spider-Man - 2002 - $825,802,095
Spider-Man 2 - 2004 - $784,543,400
Spider-Man 3 - 2007 - $891,679,447
Amazing Spider-Man - 2012 - $758,707,722
Amazing Spider-Man 2 - 2014 - $716,916,608 Homecoming - 2017 - $880,960,014
Into the Spider-Verse - 2018 - $393,602,435
Venom - 2018 - $856,085,161
Far From Home - 2019 - $1,132,705,055
No Way Home - 2021 - $1,952,732,181
Venom: Let There Be Carnage - 2021 - $506,813,864
Across the Spider-Verse - 2023 - $690,824,738
Venom: Last Dance - 2024 - $478,930,404
Madame Web - 2024 - $100,498,764
Kraven The Hunter - 2024 - $61,989,19015 films in 22 years. $11,032,791,078. Average $735,519,405.2 per film.
X-Men - 2000 - $296,339,528
X2 - 2003 - $407,711,549
Last Stand - 2006 - $460,435,291
Origins: Wolverine - 2009 - $373,062,864
First Class - 2011 - $352,616,690
The Wolverine - 2013 - $414,828,246
Days of Future Past - 2014 - $746,045,700
Apocalypse - 2016 - $543,934,105
Deadpool - 2016 - $782,837,347
Logan - 2017 - $619,180,476
Deadpool 2 - $785,896,632
Dark Phoenix - 2019 - $252,442,974
New Mutants - 2020 - $49,169,594
Deadpool & Wolverine - 2024 - $1,338,073,64514 films in 25 years. $7,422,584,641
Average $494,838,976 per film.The movies aren’t the reason for Spiderman’s popularity, they are a result of it. Spiderman is omnipresent in “children culture” in a lot of countries worldwide. Growing up they will get to know that character even if they don’t consume any specific movie, show or comic.
Oh, very much so. Marvel’s Superman.
Isn’t Spider-Man merch alone like $1B per year?
Wouldn’t surprise me… the balloons though…
