This article is part of MCU Ranking Week on ScreenRant, during which we’re rolling out our official ranking of all 37 Marvel Studios’ movies. We’re also diving deep into the MCU franchise and the films themselves. Check out our MCU Ranking Week launch article to find out more!

The MCU‘s box office history over its 17-year-long run proves the ultimate movie lesson for the franchise and the wider world of film. The MCU timeline is almost synonymous with the concept of superhero movies today – not only because they go hand-in-hand, but also because the MCU has simply grown that big.

The MCU is now one of the highest-grossing movie franchises of all time, thanks in part to Avengers: Endgame‘s mind-boggling $2.7 billion worldwide box office. That said, the MCU’s track record underlines a fundamental lesson about the difference between its box office and review results, as can be seen throughout the franchise’s history.

The MCU’s Box Office History Established A Key Lesson From Day One

Iron Man‘s reputation today almost speaks for itself, both as the start of the MCU, and one of its most consistently well-regarded releases. This is interesting, given that – while Iron Man was by no means a box office slouch – it didn’t reach the heights of what was already established to be financially possible for superhero movies via the Spider-Man trilogy.

This established a crucial concept early on for the MCU – the idea that their most critically or artistically well-regarded movies might not be the same thing as their most financially lucrative. While sometimes these fields are aligned, the further the MCU has gotten, the further it has established that this is not always the case for the franchise.

For example, Iron Man netted itself close to $100 million less than Thor: The Dark World, and made over $150 million less than Thor: Love & Thunder, despite the more divisive receptions to both films. Similarly, Avengers: Age Of Ultron is the MCU’s fifth highest-grossing movie, despite being less well-regarded than many MCU films that made far, far less.

While Iron Man being the first MCU film does in part explain its financial results, this concept holds up later down the line as well. For example, despite having a notably higher critic ratings across the board, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever made almost $100 million less than Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness.

Perhaps some of the best examples of how a film’s box office and artistic merit often don’t match up come with Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings.

Despite being some of the most well-regarded MCU movies of all time, neither film grossed over the $1 billion mark, even though they proved to be some of the MCU’s best stories, giving them some of the sharpest divides between their box office rankings and review rankings in the superhero genre.

Why The MCU’s Highest Rated Movies Aren’t Always Its Highest Grossing

Though there’s a huge and vital cross-section in terms of what movies people flock to see in theaters and what movies they critically regard as the best, there are plenty of reasons these categories don’t always overlap. This is especially true for a franchise like the MCU, where smaller and more self-contained stories need to be told between blockbuster crossovers.

Broadly speaking, narrowing down what a film’s story is – in terms of scope, or in terms of refining what the narrative itself is about down – can leave audiences feeling like it’s less imperative for them to see it in the cinema. “Event movies” like the Avengers films are generally a safer bet, whereas branching out can garner less consistent results.

The superhero genre can be doubly vulnerable to this. Installments within a franchise like the MCU can be drastically different, meaning even fans may choose to abstain from some releases if they don’t immediately resonate with them. This is particularly pressing in the present day, wherein people know they will be able to stream said films eventually anyway too.

Altogether, the fact that box office results and critical reception aren’t always strictly matched for the MCU is important to note. Ultimately, while a movie franchise needs to make money in order to prospect and continue, it’s clear much of the MCU’s popularity and reputation has been critically built from lower-grossing films, underlining their equal importance.

The MCU’s Box Office History Teaches A Key Lesson For Its Future

The post-Avengers: Endgame world we now live in has changed the landscape for the MCU, with the past few years having provided a more varied range of critical and commercial results for the franchise. However, these ranged results seem more promising given the context that the past years have largely held up in terms of reviews for MCU releases.

Much in the same way now-DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn explained his aims for Superman were not to chase box office records but rather ensure the film was something people cared about and that built trust in the franchise, the positive critical reception for the majority of the MCU’s recent releases may be more important in the long run.

Though the pressure is still on for the next Avengers movies to be hits, history does demonstrate that the MCU’s success should never be weighed solely in terms of box office results. While the post-Endgame era has undeniably presented new challenges, several of the MCU’s highest rated films have also released in this period, which is worth paying attention to.

All in all, the MCU‘s track record certainly suggests that its recent downfalls aren’t necessarily as foreboding as it may initially appear. Hopefully, the franchise will be able to take the positive reception from recent releases like The Fantastic Four: First Steps and ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine, and capitalize on them going into the likes of Avengers: Doomsday.