At least some at Marvel and DC can get along…
I’ll start by saying I’m skeptical about this letter’s veracity, in part because DC’s alleged reply doesn’t seem corporate enough, and also because it seems like the typical Karma-whoring hoax on Reddit. (The comic overuse of exclamation points to make DC seem particularly incompetent is a dead giveaway.) Why is everyone reporting a clickbait picture on Reddit like it’s absolutely true? Wait, I just answered my own question. Clickbait. Okay. Well, we need pageviews*, too, so here we go…
A Redditor said his brother had to send a letter to a company for a school project. He chose DC Comics and asked them how they “plan to compete against Marvel movies”. DC’s alleged reply includes the dubious slam that “our movies by far exceed all of Marvel’s in sales.”
Movies from DC Comics have grossed more than Marvel’s only if you look at the numbers in a very specific way. Slashfilm did the research, and the short version is this: the 36 years of DC movies have grossed $6.3 billion to the $5.7 billion grossed only by the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies of the past six years. That doesn’t include all Marvel properties like X-Men, Spider-Man, Blade, and — of course — box office sensation Howard The Duck. The total Marvel global box office gross is $13.2 billion to DC’s $6.3 billion.
In other words, when Chris Hemsworth said Marvel is “just winning” the Marvel vs. DC rivalry, he had numbers to back that up.
Also, this letter is probably bullsh*t.
Pictures via UnitedWeFall and miggitykb on Reddit.
* The fact that I called shenanigans on this story instead of running it as fact with a hyperbolic headline guarantees I won’t get all those much-needed pageviews, because the internet is f*cking terrible and we can’t have nice things.