Skip to content

Wednesday, Apr. 14, 2021

Have female superheroes historically performed as well at the box office as their male counterparts?

Lisa Freedland, Gigafact Foundry
no

While some recent superhero movies with female leads posted box-office gross receipts on par with some male-led films, the biggest hits more typically feature male superheroes or a team of superheroes. Of the top 15 earning superhero films released since 1995, two have female leads: “Captain Marvel” (2019), ranking 13th at $427 million and “Wonder Woman” (2017), ranking 14th at $412 million. In 2019, “Avengers: Endgame” earned more than those two releases combined.

Still, those tallies mark gains from decades past. “Catwoman” (2004), for example, made $82 million worldwide, and “Elektra” (2005) made almost $57 million worldwide. By comparison, “Spiderman” (2002) and “Spiderman 2” (2004) made around $400 million and $370 million.

“Batwoman,” a 2019 TV series based on the DC comic character, is struggling to garner viewership amid poor reviews. It is rated 3.2 out of ten by IMDb users.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

About fact briefs

Fact briefs are bite-sized, well-sourced explanations that offer clear "yes" or "no" answers to questions, confusions, and unsupported claims circulating online. They rely on publicly available data and documents, often from the original source. Fact briefs are written and published by Gigafact contributor publications.

See all fact briefs

Between 2020 and 2022, under close editorial supervision, Gigafact contracted a group of freelance writers and editors to test the concepts for fact briefs and provide inputs to our software development process. We call this effort Gigafact Foundry. Over the course of these two years, Gigafact Foundry writers published over 1500 fact briefs in response to claims they found online. Their important work forms the basis of Gigafact formats and editorial guidelines, and is available to the public on Gigafact.org. Readers should be aware that while there is still a lot of relevant information to be found, not all fact briefs produced by Gigafact Foundry reflect Gigafact's current methods and standards for fact briefs. If you come across any that you feel are out of date and need to be looked at with fresh eyes, don't hesitate to contact us at support@gigafact.org.

Learn More

Latest Fact Briefs

Be a Friend of facts

Help us fund more great fact briefs like this one.