Hint: It’s Spider-Man. By a considerable margin. The Hollywood Reporter took a look at which heroes were the most bankable across the world. Their findings? Spidey brings in about 1.3 billion dollars in annual licensing revenue:
Much has been made of the arms race between Disney’s Marvel Studios and Warner Bros.’ DC Comics to create superhero movies through 2020. Less debated is a key financial underpinning of the war: Licensing revenue generates tens of billions of dollars for Hollywood companies, and DC needs a heroic effort to catch Marvel in licensing profits.
On Oct. 15, Warners CEO Kevin Tsujihara said that if he can close the current gap by half, the studio could earn an additional $150 million a year in profits. How big is the gap? In May, License Global placed Disney first among licensors with sales of about $41 billion in 2013; Warners was seventh with $6 billion. Both have strong properties: The Licensing Letter listed Marvel’s Spider-Man global retail sales at $1.3 billion and Avengers at $325 million in 2013, compared with DC’s Batman at $494 million and Superman at $277 million.
“Marvel has a big head start,” says Ira Mayer, publisher of The Licensing Letter, adding, “It’s not that Warners can’t do it, but it is going to take a lot of time and money and energy to make it happen.”
At the end of the day, the superhero pulling in the most money worldwide is also known for struggling to pay his rent. Heh! Thanks to PunyParker for bringing it to my attention. Crawlspacer jpd13 also started a thread on the forums about it yesterday as well.
–George Berryman!
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I really don’t know why its THAT popular.
The Spidey animated series on DisXD is pretty good. I think more kids see these than read the comic…plus the t-shirts and toys are pretty cool. I agree that Marvel better start working on the quality the comic and re-take the movie rights or D.C. Is going to take a big bite out of that market share. I think Marvel has made some very entertaining movies…if only they could have a go at a Spider-Man movie!!
its amazing that Spidey manages to be the number 1 money maker despite Marvel not knowing how to write a decent coic book featuring him and Sony having no clue how to use him in a movie series. just imagine how successful this character would be in the hands of competent storytellers.
Guess Spidey is the most kid friendly hero. I work with kids,3-6 year olds,and they ALL know who Spidey is. Supes and Batsy?! Not so much. Depends on age though. But over here,Spidey is considered a kids hero,socalled adults think it’s just some childish thing. But what do socalled adults know,right? I’ll always be a Spidey fan first and foremost,doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy a lot of the other heroes as well,I just don’t buy that much of their merchandise,lol.
Now if only they could do a REALLY good Spidey movie,that’d be great. I enjoy all the movies,don’t get me wrong,but some of them could’ve been so much better.
Great that he’s the number one in merch though.
J-R!