Marvel and DC’s respective highest box office releases of 2025 both prove that the MCU‘s first movie lesson is still just as relevant – and applicable – almost 20 years after it was first established. Though Marvel and DC’s recent histories in the world of movies have been decidedly different, both find themselves in broadly familiar places when it comes to navigating this year and the road ahead.
With both sides of the superhero sphere looking to pave new paths forward that enrich their respective worlds – and adapt their movie universes in a way that suits current audience needs and desires – 2025’s biggest superhero movie results are in some ways more important than ever. This makes it all the more interesting that Marvel and DC’s biggest movies repeat one classic MCU lesson.
Marvel & DC’s Biggest 2025 Box Office Successes Show Audiences Are Just As Interested In Major New Series For Big Heroes
2025 had a wide roster of superhero movie releases, which makes it all the more interesting to note that Marvel and DC’s highest-grossing films of this year – namely, The Fantastic Four: First Steps and Superman, respectively – both mirror each other in a lot of ways.
While the MCU movie features a superhero team and Superman focuses on the titular hero, both films bring back some of their respective franchise’s biggest characters for a new movie world, and provide another on-screen reboot for figures the general public are very familiar with. Despite the fact that the Fantastic Four and Superman have had many previous movies, their 2025 reboot debuts both saw box office results that topped their respective franchises.
Though calls have increasingly come for superhero movies to ensure they have a unique tone and avoid rehashing too many overused tropes of the genre, this success shows that these hopes don’t ban franchises from giving their biggest heroes solo movie reboots, even if doing so is retreading ground that has been covered many times beforehand.
As such, 2025 effectively proves there’s room for Marvel and DC to continue to approach things in the way the MCU initially did with its first installments, as – while the past few years have seen the superhero genre often focus on sequels considerably – there’s evidently still interest in new faces and names entering these franchises, so long as things are handled carefully.
Marvel & DC’s 2025 Box Office Results Still Paint A Promising Picture For Both Franchise’s Futures
While 2025’s overall box office results saw some lower grosses for the superhero genre, the fact that The Fantastic Four: First Steps and Superman netted the genre’s best box office takings does appear to bode well for the world of superhero movies as a whole.
Though the MCU’s lower box office results showed there’s potentially lessons to be learned in order to ensure the next chapters of major character’s stories grip fans and make their movies must-see – and pay off on what came beforehand for these figures – the success of Superman and the Fantastic Four’s film returns is crucial given more superhero movies are set to soon follow along their same path.
This is most obvious for the DCU timeline, wherein Supergirl will very directly follow on from the success of Superman as it sets up another very well-known Kryptonian hero. Similarly, with the MCU’s X-Men reboot seemingly on the horizon for the franchise, the success of the Fantastic Four’s own long-awaited MCU movie reboot seems to suggest promising things for the likes of Professor X’s hero team, too.