The Best Box Office Performing Superhero Movie

Details: Created on Thursday, July 19, 2012 12:00 AM PDT; Written by King Mika

It wasn't until the start of the 21st century (when cost effective hyperrealistic special effects was available) when the superhero genre bloomed on the big screen. Let's take a look at the top 10 unadjusted box office performing superhero movies (as of this writing):

	Movie	Domestic	Foreign	WORLDWIDE
1.	Marvel's The Avengers (2012)	$613,660,486	$844,100,000	$1,457,760,486
2.	The Dark Knight (2008)	$533,345,358	$468,576,467	$1,001,921,825
3.	Spider-Man 3 (2007)	$336,530,303	$554,341,323	$890,871,626
4.	Spider-Man (2002)	$403,706,375	$418,002,176	$821,708,551
5.	Spider-Man 2 (2004)	$373,585,825	$410,180,516	$783,766,341
6.	The Incredibles (2004)	$261,441,092	$370,001,000	$631,442,092
7.	Hancockk (2008)	$227,946,274	$396,440,472	$624,386,746
8.	Iron Man 2 (2010)	$312,433,331	$311,500,000	$623,933,331
9.	Iron Man (2008)	$318,412,101	$266,762,121	$585,174,222
10.	X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)	$234,362,462	$224,997,093	$459,359,555

The Incredibles and Hancock are the only superhero films in the top 10 that's not based on an estiblished franchise.

Despite being the least popular estiblished superhero franchise in the top 10, the first Iron Man movie managed to outperform X-Men: The Last Stand.

Interestingly, Spider-Man 3 ($554 million) grossed higher in the box office than The Dark Knight ($468 million) in the foreign market. The former is a horrible sequel, and the latter is an epic sequel.

I don't think that anyone had predicted that Marvel's The Avengers would become the highest grossing superhero movie of all-time! To top that off, the fim went down in history as the third highest grossing movie in the domestic market! However, when you adjust the movie for inflation, Marvel's The Avengers is merely the 26th highest grossing film of all-time in the domestic market. Still, that's a major accomplishment given the current market!

either praising, or discovering Schwarzenegger