The Avengers Beat Batman on iTunes, But What Will Happen At the Box Office?

As of right now, Marvel is beating DC in the movie trailer round, with The Avengers trailer surpassing The Dark Knight Rises in views on iTunes. Marvel also has The Amazing Spider-Man coming up, so their collective hits far outweigh Batman. But what will this mean for the movies when they come out this spring and summer? Are we turning this into an imaginary battle between rival publishing houses and the success of their spinoff films? Answer: Probably. It’s not a competition, you guys … just kidding. It probably is.

Even excluding The Hunger Games, it’s an exciting year for superhero movies for a lot of us, especially those of us who have a soft spot for Spidey and Batman. And The Avengers is kind of an unofficial “group sequel” for all the other Marvel movies that have come out in the past couple of years (Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, yet another shot at The Hulk). But while it feels like Marvel is gearing up for something big, The Dark Knight Rises is the opposite; this is Christopher Nolan‘s dark trilogy winding down. Tons of people are getting excited to assemble, and tons of people are getting ready to say farewell. And probably some overlap in between. (This is where a venn diagram would come in handy.)

But as always, there will be a battle at the box office, and someone will set and break records. The Avengers opens May 4 in the US (April 26 in the UK, you lucky Brits), followed a couple of months later by the next Marvel movie, The Amazing Spider-Man on July 3, and then finally The Dark Knight Rises on July 20.

And then there will be exactly zero superhero movies to be excited about, because how often does this kind of thing happen? Last summer, we saw the release of another slew of superheroes, some of which turned out great (Captain America: The Last Avenger) and some did not (Green Lantern). Last summer, you could easily give the “trophy” to Marvel, even though Thor was seen as mediocre at best. But Green Lantern was just so badly received that all DC had going for it was the mystery and hype surrounding … The Dark Knight Rises, a movie that was not going to be out for over a year.

The thing about The Dark Knight Rises, however, is that it’s of a completely different caliber of superhero movies. Like Oscar-caliber. While Marvel movies are generally pretty darn fun, how often do people claim they’re snubbed at the Oscars? That’s what happened to The Dark Knight, and that movie is one reason the number of Best Picture nominees jumped the year after it was eligible. And let’s not forget that Heath Ledger won a posthumous Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his work as the Joker. This does not happen to Marvel movies.

Here is the bottom line: Everyone is excited about these movies, they are all going to make a boatload of money, and whoever makes the most money … makes the most money. I’d put the bigger battle between The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises, with The Amazing Spider-Man doing just fine, but making a bit less.

(via The Geek Files)