Marvel's meteoric rise: We chart the rise of Marvel, the biggest movie franchise of all time

7/1/21 8:00PM

Next week Marvel will premiere Black Widow, a superhero movie that will become the 24th in the Marvel Cinematic Universe since Iron Man kicked off the series back in 2008.

‍Marvel's meteoric rise

‍In 2007 Star Wars and James Bond were roughly tied as the biggest grossing movie franchises at the box office (US, inflation adjusted). It would have been pretty hard to imagine a franchise starting in 2008 that would go on to eclipse them both — but that is exactly what happened with the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The chart above, which we've recreated thanks to data from The Numbers, shows how Disney's $4.2bn acquisition of Marvel has paid off handsomely since 2009. Since the deal the house of mouse has churned out Marvel movies like clockwork, at a rate of roughly 2 a year, for much of the last decade — racking up almost $10bn at the US box office and more than $20bn around the world.

‍Everything's a sequel now

‍As well as reinvigorating the superhero genre, the Marvel universe has also become the poster child for the trend of "sequelitis". That's the idea that sequels (or prequels), remakes and spin-offs have become increasingly prevalent in Hollywood and the cinematic world more generally.

Getting hard data on "sequelitis" depends a lot on how you define a sequel or a remake. For example 2019's movie Joker could easily be a stand-alone movie on its own, or be thought of as part of the Batman franchise (which it is in the chart above).

One simple test is just to look at the most popular 10 movies of each year. Taking 2019 as an example (which was the last "normal year" for cinema) is pretty telling. Every single movie in the top 10 is either a direct sequel (Avengers: Endgame, Toy Story 4, Frozen 2), a remake (Aladdin, Lion King) or a spin-off (Joker).

Tom Jones

big deal

6/15/26

Lionsgate persists with decade-long effort to make a “Monopoly” movie

America’s favorite board game is proving a tricky subject for a feature film.

Daily Life in New York City Around The One-year Anniversary of The COVID-19 Shut Down

Tom Jones6/9/26

The BBC has become the world’s top news website... by collapsing a little less than its competition

Press Gazette just published its annual look at the biggest news sites in the world across all languages; for the most part, it doesn’t make for particularly pretty reading.

The journalism industry publication’s latest update, which is based on estimates provided by Similarweb for May, found that 37 of the world’s 50 most visited news sites saw their reach shrink. Press Gazette highlighted that American outlets have been hit particularly hard by declining Google traffic compared to European counterparts, owing to the platform’s AI features rolling out earlier in the US.

Even the BBC, having climbed the rankings from last year to top the 2026 chart — reportedly in part thanks to Similarweb’s decision to combine the “.co.uk” and “.com” versions of the URL, given that the sites redirect to each other depending on the user’s location — showed a 1.9% decline from last year.

Millie Giles

PLAY THE BILLS

6/8/26

Last night’s Tony Awards were a curtain call for a record-smashing season on Broadway

This year’s star-studded theater awards wrapped up the highest-grossing season Broadway’s ever seen.

Millie Giles

SOUND FAMILIAR?

6/5/26

Kids these days are listening to more songs from the good old days

Music nostalgia is in full swing, and the younger listeners of today appear to be partying like it’s pre-1999.

Saleah Blancaflor6/4/26

Drake whiffs on an expected No. 1 on Spotify

Drake started at the bottom and he’s here, but not quite at the top... of Spotify, at least.

It’s been nearly three weeks since Drake dropped his three surprise albums — “Iceman,” “Habibti,” and “Maid of Honour.” Heading into the month, prediction markets were rating it a near certainty, a 98% chance, that Drake’s sonic onslaught was enough to snag the No. 1 slot on Spotify at least once in June.

But, while he surpassed the late Michael Jackson and took up three slots on the Billboard album chart at once, his newly released songs haven’t quite cracked the popular music-streaming platform’s top charts, and market seem to think the moment has passed.

(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)

Spotify’s “Top Songs - Global” chart currently show that Jackson’s “Billie Jean,” which is more than four decades old, Justin Bieber’s “Beauty and a Beat,” which climbed back to the top of Spotify charts following his Coachella set in the spring, Olivia Rodrigo’s new angsty love song “The Cure,” and BTS’s “Swim” are all ahead of Drake’s “STFU Janice” from his “Iceman” album.

While Spotify previously reported last month that Drake’s “Make Them Cry” was the most streamed album in a single day this year, that was later revealed to be a data error.

Prediction markets currently show traders are betting there’s only a 15% chance Drake will have a No. 1 song on Spotify in June.

Meanwhile, Taylor Swift is in the lead at 98% — a day before the release of her new original song “I Knew It, I Knew You,” which she wrote and performed for Disney and Pixar’s upcoming “Toy Story 5” — followed by Olivia Rodrigo, whose highly anticipated album “You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love” comes out next Friday.