Two Marvel and DC films have officially been confirmed as some of the biggest box office bombs of 2024. Despite wide releases and major studio backing, both titles underperformed significantly in theaters.
Sony's Kraven the Hunter and Warner Bros.' Joker: Folie à Deux are confirmed as 2024's biggest comic book movie flops. Despite the strength of their respective brands and star power, both titles failed to meet financial expectations, ultimately becoming cautionary tales in an unpredictable theatrical landscape. Their box office underperformance reflects shifting audience tastes, superhero fatigue, and risky studio spending.
According to Deadline, Joker: Folie à Deux suffered a net loss of $144.25 million, while Kraven the Hunter rounded out the comic book movie year with a $71 million loss. The news is significant not just because of the high-profile nature of these titles, but because it underscores a deeper problem within the superhero genre: audiences are no longer showing up in droves just because a movie is tied to Marvel or DC.
Joker: Folie à Deux stands out as one of the harshest sequel drops in recent box office history. The original Joker was a cultural phenomenon, earning over $1.1 billion globally on a modest budget and becoming the most successful R-rated film in history (until 2024's Deadpool & Wolverine claimed that title). Warner Bros. took a creative swing by turning the sequel into a stylized musical featuring Joaquin Phoenix reprising his Oscar-winning role and Lady Gaga joining as Harley Quinn. Despite the star power and a $200 million investment, the film's unconventional approach earned it a D CinemaScore and a staggering financial loss, revealing that audience appetite for dark, auteur-driven superhero dramas may have its limits.
Meanwhile, Kraven the Hunter had low expectations from the start following multiple release date shifts, from MLK weekend 2023 to October 2023, then Labor Day 2024, and finally settling on December 13. Even with these tempered forecasts, the film still underperformed.
Opening with just $11 million domestically (the lowest ever for a Sony Marvel title), Kraven fell on its face. To make matters worse, production costs escalated to $110 million after reshoots post-actors' strike in 2023. The film's C CinemaScore and poor fan reception may have been the final nail in the Sony Spider-Man Universe coffin.
Additional high-profile box office bombs of 2024 (per Deadline) include Megalopolis (net loss: $75.5 million), Borderlands (net loss: $80 million), and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (net loss: $119.6 million).
Joker 2 & Kraven: Outliers or Trends?
While the box office failures of Joker: Folie à Deux and Kraven the Hunter are notable, they're better viewed as outliers than signs of permanent genre decline.
When Marvel and DC release quality content, audiences still show up in droves. Case in point: Deadpool and Wolverine shattered every R-rated box office record, grossing over $1.3 billion worldwide and proving that interest in (some) superhero movies remains high.
So far in 2025, the picture is mixed.
Marvel's Captain America: Brave New World has grossed over $400 million, which isn't disastrous but also not impressive by MCU standards. It's still a step up from 2023's The Marvels, which became the biggest financial flop in Marvel Studios history, losing Disney a reported $237 million.
On the DC side, Joker 2 arguably never needed to be made in the first place. It felt like a big "F--- You" to the very fans who turned the original Joker into a billion-dollar success triumph. It also followed the studio's costly misstep with 2023's The Flash, which lost Warner Bros. a reported $155 million despite being heavily marketed as a major multiverse event. By contrast, 2022's The Batman demonstrated that a darker, more grounded superhero movie can thrive when executed well, earning over $772 million globally and reaffirming the Dark Knight's status as one of the most bankable heroes in Hollywood.
Looking ahead, the stakes are far higher for DC's Superman reboot under James Gunn. With the studio's future hinging on this film's success, a flop would signal real trouble. A misfire like Kraven or Joker 2 can be absorbed, but Superman is a cornerstone.
