The results are in, and they're telling a story even Marvel and DC can't retcon comic book movies are losing their grip on the box office. A fresh projection for one of 2026's biggest movies thus is showing a shift in audience tastes. This comes after four major superhero films were released last year, with four more slated for 2026. In a world where the term "comic book fatigue" is getting fatigued, it seems like the genre has finally lost its grip 10 years after dominating theaters.
2026 is potentially changing the game forever in sci-fi moviemaking and box office success. Directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller and starring Ryan Gosling, Amazon MGM Studios' Project Hail Mary is the box office darling so far this year.
Compared to the other big hitter, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, Project Hail Mary was no guarantee; in fact, many insiders believed Amazon MGM's entire future strategy could shift depending on how well this movie performed. They clearly believed in it, with a reported budget of around $200 million.
A similar story played out in 2025, when a major tech and streaming company (Apple) placed a big bet on Brad Pitt and F1: The Movie. With a budget north of $200 million itself, F1 ultimately grossed $633.4 million, creating sequel buzz and showing that Apple was back in the theatrical game after a few missteps.
Only a few weeks into its run, Project Hail Mary has already earned over half a billion dollars globally. It's now projected to finish its theatrical run between $650M and $720M (per Luiz Fernando), boosted by a return to IMAX screens, which accounted for 20% of the film's domestic opening weekend alone.
All of this leads to a pretty stunning realization: more people are interested in an original two-and-a-half-hour space adventure, adapted from Andy Weir's 2021 novel, than in Superman. To be fair, 2025's Superman, directed by James Gunn, earned $618.7M, and that is a success by most measures.
But these results are graded on a curve. Superman succeeded in rebooting the character, delivering a well-received film, and finishing as the highest-grossing comic book movie of the year.
The once unflappable Marvel Studios couldn't even match DC's marquee summer release. The Fantastic Four: First Steps finished at $520.4 million, Captain America: Brave New World at $413.6 million, and Thunderbolts*, despite rave reviews, only earned a concerning $382.4 million.
A lot of people, even just a few years ago, would have been shocked to hear that a movie like Project Hail Mary could outgross a Superman film. People farther back in time would have been floored.
But it is the sign of the times, and comic book movies have clearly lost their footing. It's also worth noting that DC has historically been the lesser brand compared to Marvel Studios, which built the biggest and most successful franchise of the 2010s with the MCU.
There have been big wins sprinkled throughout the decade, most recently 2024's Deadpool & Wolverine, but the 2020s overall have been a difficult learning experience for Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige.
He has since shifted his focus away from streaming and is now directing his energy almost entirely toward the two upcoming Avengers films.
That pivot is logical. 2025 was a sobering year for Marvel, with none of its releases cracking the upper tier of the box office alongside performers like Zootopia 2 or even A Minecraft Movie. DC got a bit closer with Superman, but even that fell short of Man of Steel's $670M, twelve years later, and with a much larger global audience.
Project Hail Mary is only the latest example of a film targeting demographics very similar to those of a comic book movie and succeeding. The originality and freshness of Lord and Miller's film were a clear draw, while superhero fatigue appears to have put a ceiling on every 2025 Marvel and DC release.
There will always be near-guaranteed performers like this year's Spider-Man: Brand New Day or Avengers: Doomsday, but DC's upcoming summer release Supergirl looks unlikely to reach the heights Project Hail Mary is currently climbing toward.
In some ways, video game movie adaptations now feel like safer bets than comic book films, which would have been an almost absurd thing to say not long ago.
Many will and should celebrate the success of Project Hail Mary. But the bigger and more pressing questions are what this moment means for the industry as a whole, and whether the leaders of these media empires are actually learning the right lessons.
Is the Comic Book Movie Era Over?
The secret about comic book movies is the endless machine of stories and iconic characters still left to pull from. Batman and Spider-Man, in particular, still feel completely untouchable.
The first trailer for Spider-Man: Brand New Day shattered nearly every viewership record within its first 24 hours. These characters and the films built around them aren't going anywhere, but the expectation of what they mean in the grand scheme of the movie business is clearly changing.
They're no longer the automatic kings of the box office; they're now one strong option competing on the same field as original sci-fi epics, animated sequels, and video game adaptations.
The genre's peak was Marvel Studios' Infinity Saga, and chasing that blueprint has caused some embarrassing results, from the fast-tracked and messy DCEU to Sony's baffling string of Spider-Man villain spin-offs that almost nobody asked for.
The big guns aren't going anywhere, though. How Marvel conducts itself in a post-Secret Wars world, as it begins folding the X-Men into a rebuilt MCU, combined with Gunn's effort to grow the DCU, will define the genre heading into the late 2020s.
Comic book movies aren't dying. They're just no longer guaranteed, and in a world where Project Hail Mary can outgross Superman, it's going to result in real change.
