How ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ Demand Stacks Up Versus Other Superhero Movies This Year | Charts
The $143 million opening weekend domestic box office for “Thor: Love and Thunder” should serve as a reminder of two things: First, there’s no such thing as “franchise fatigue.” And second, demand for superhero content — and the subsequent willingness of audiences to pay to see those movies in theaters — remains as strong as ever.
U.S. audience demand for “Thor: Love and Thunder” was 283.7 times bigger than the demand for the average movie on July 10, the Sunday of its opening weekend, according to Parrot Analytics‘ newly launched Movie Demand data, which takes into account consumer research, streaming, downloads and social media, among other engagement.
This is the third-highest daily movie demand level Parrot Analytics has tracked so far in 2022, behind fellow superhero standouts “Spider-Man: No Way Home” (which, to date, grossed $805 million in domestic box office) and “The Batman” ($369 million in domestic box office).
But “Thor: Love and Thunder” just debuted — so, which superhero movies have consistently captivated U.S. audiences throughout the year?
Unsurprisingly, Marvel Cinematic Universe movies account for half of the top 10 superhero movies of 2022 with U.S. audiences. Both of Sony’s Venom movies, which are closely related to the MCU, appear in the top 10. Warner Bros. Discovery’s DC franchise accounted for the remaining three — including second-place “The Batman.”
Most of these movies were released within the last 12 months, but one outlier is “Avengers: Endgame,” the second-highest grossing movie worldwide of all time. Despite debuting in April 2019, this movie is still 33.8 times more in demand than the average movie in the U.S., and is the sixth most in demand superhero movie so far in 2022.
Eight of the top 10 superhero movies had significant theatrical releases, while “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” (37 times more in demand than the average movie in the U.S.) and “The Suicide Squad” (28.2 times) launched exclusively on HBO Max.
The most in-demand superhero movie — and the most in-demand movie overall — so far this year has been “Spider-Man: No Way Home” (139.6 times).
Plotting “Spider-Man: No Way Home” against second place “The Batman” (69.4 times) shows just how much of an outlier it has been in terms of capturing audience demand.
“The Batman” briefly overtook “Spider-Man: No Way Home” after being made available on HBO Max in April, but it was no match for “No Way Home’s” peak demand. Within a week of debuting in theaters, “No Way Home” hit a peak demand of 476.6 times more than the average movie with U.S. audiences.
Typically, the most in-demand movie or TV show with U.S. and global audiences has anywhere from 80-100 times the average demand. “No Way Home’s” audience demand performance thus shows how much of a culture-dominating phenomenon this movie became.
Movie Demand data further reveals how important superhero stories are to the overall health of the movie business. The top five superhero movies are all in the U.S. top 10 overall movies, once again showing the crucial link between demand for content and the willingness for consumers to spend money to see it.
Also Read:
How Demand for ‘The Boys’ Stacks Up Against Other Superhero Shows | Charts
