After looking at how Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse‘s box office holds up compared to Marvel’s other movies, I’m convinced the franchise needs to create more big animated superhero films. Spider-Man’s live-action movies have been some of the most consistently commercially successful in Marvel’s roster, both inside the MCU timeline and outside of it. The Spider-Verse films are no exception to the rule, with the positive critical and box office results of Miles Morales’ leap into the world of movies holding up for both of the currently released installments in the planned trilogy.
In fact, the box office results of these animated installments hold up well even when compared with many big-name releases from the MCU and other big-budget Marvel series, underlining both their success and the opportunity they suggest Marvel has in terms of expanding upon this cinematic win. In fact, given the notable selection of superhero movies that have lower box office results than Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse, it seems the time has perhaps never been better for the franchise to look at leaning into animated movie releases more going forward, and building on these previous wins..
Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse’s Box Office Is A Considerable Feat
Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse‘s worldwide box office results sit around $681-690 million based on reports (as per The Numbers and Box Office Mojo), with the animated sequel movie making roughly $300 million more than its predecessor, Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, which made around $374-383 million (via The Numbers and Box Office Mojo) itself. This upward trajectory makes sense, as Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse was a success in its own right, and its popularity – and subsequent streaming release – opened the door for even more people to be invested in the world and its story.
The Spider-Verse movie trilogy is set to be completed with Spider-Man: Beyond The Spider-Verse, though its release date is currently unknown.
This result is all the more worth considering given the limited number of animated superhero movies that get theatrical releases. While both Marvel and DC release their fair share of animated films most years, these tend to be relegated to streaming or straight-to-DVD stories, and often are aimed more squarely at younger audiences, which has led to the medium being sometimes regarded as a less meaningful and significant one compared to its live-action brethren.
As such, seeing this demonstration of just how good animation can be as a visual movie medium – especially for the superhero genre, wherein animation can naturally lend itself to enhance a story’s action and emotion – is all the more important. Given the Spider-Verse movies haven’t had as much pre-existing proof as future animated Marvel movies now have in terms of showing they can work on the big screen, their increasing box office success is a testament to both how talented those involved in making the release really are, and how much untapped potential lies in this medium.
Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse’s Box Office Is Higher Than A Wide Range Of Live-Action Superhero Movies
The box office success of Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse looks all the more impressive when compared with its live-action peers, who are able to build upon the popularity and history of live-action superhero movies and their rise to legitimacy in the past few decades, as well as having the added advantage of generally existing inside of popular universes that can help bolster their success. Despite not having these same circumstances to build on, the animated Spider-Man story still racked up an impressive box office result.
At around $681-690 million, Across The Spider-Verse‘s worldwide box office is higher than the original Doctor Strange, the first and second Thor movies, and the first and second Iron Man movies, as well as a wide range of other notable MCU movies. The animated movie’s overarching box office results are also higher than all of the live-action Sony Spider-Man Universe movies bar the original 2018 Venom, and the majority of movies from the Fox X-Men universe timeline, including the likes of Logan, X-Men: The Last Stand, and the original 2000 X-Men film.
Similarly, it may also be worth noting that, when compared with DC’s movies over the years, Across The Spider-Verse‘s box office is also above many other notable releases, including that of the DCEU’s Man Of Steel and the 2017 release of Justice League. Having released in 2023, it’s additionally notable that Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse grossed more than all of the DCEU’s 2023 movies, including Shazam! Fury Of The Gods, Blue Beetle, and the timeline’s final release, Aquaman and The Last Kingdom.
While these results are worth qualifying with the note that inflation does make movies released today more likely to garner a higher box office result – and that a lot of this can seemingly be attributed to the general appeal of Spider-Man movies, since the live-action Spider-Man movie roster all have higher box offices than Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse – seeing how the animated sequel compares to a lot of the live-action superhero sphere is still undeniably impressive. As such, I’m hopeful these results can pave an exciting new path forward for Marvel and the superhero genre more broadly speaking.
The Spider-Verse Movies Show That Animated Superhero Movies Can Have Major Box Office Results
Though Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse & Across The Spider-Verse are by no means the first animated superhero movies to be quality stories that show the artistic merits of bringing comic book stories to life on-screen, they certainly go a good way to help legitimize animated superhero movies as releases that can work as big theatrical releases. Given the critical success of the Spider-Verse releases thus far, audiences are likely to view any other future animated Marvel releases with a more welcoming eye after enjoying Miles Morales’ animated adventures, opening up yet more promise for potential follow-ups on this success.
Similarly, where live-action has been the go-to medium that has been considered for superhero movies in recent years, hopefully the box office success of the Spider-Verse movies- and Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse particularly – can encourage more experimentation with having other stories be told in an animated format instead. Not only can this help build towards a more varied and fresh-feeling overall roster of releases, but hopefully, it also can bring similar results in terms of box office for the franchise, reinforcing animated movies as an even more viable avenue for Marvel years to come.
Upcoming MCU Movies
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Thunderbolts*
- Release Date
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May 2, 2025
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The Fantastic Four: First Steps
- Release Date
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July 25, 2025
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Avengers: Doomsday (2026)
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MCU Spider-Man 4
- Release Date
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July 24, 2026
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Avengers: Secret Wars
- Release Date
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May 7, 2027
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