Analyzing Marvel Vs DC Rivalry: What Does The Data Say?
An exploratory analysis of Marvel Vs DC rivalry using Microsoft Excel and Power BI.
For the past 80 years, the names Marvel and DC have been synonymous with one thing - superheroes.
Everyone loves a superhero. Their unique combination of superhuman powers with normal human emotions and weaknesses makes them relatable and fun. They have been entertaining audiences, first in comic books and now in big-budget movies for decades.
The two popular brands behind these superheroes which are now seen as the "big two" — have been locked in a battle for market dominance and for the most part, their rivalry has been friendly and professional, with each camp acknowledging that healthy competition is a good thing.
However, like Coca-Cola and Pepsi, most consumers prefer one or the other. There is an unending debate among the fans about which brand is better, and it pretty much depends on who you ask because they both have rabid fanbases.
If you are unsure of which universe to prefer or like best, don’t worry. You are not alone. After arguing for decades, I’m here to help you answer the following questions;
- What is the percentage share of their movies in each genre?
- Who produced the highest and lowest-grossing movies?
- How many movies have been released over the years?
- What’s the average IMDb and Meta rating for the two brands?
- Which brand keeps you glued to your screen for a long time?
- What audience are they targeting?
- And lastly, which directors have made fortunes?
For those interested, this is how I did it;
Data Sources: The dataset was downloaded from Onyx Data and some variables were collected from Wikipedia. It covers the performance data of the two brands between 1952 and 2020.
Data gathering: Most of the data collection work was done in Excel using Concat, Trim and Lookup functions, and a bit of statistical function. Manual inspection was also carried out. God! It wasn’t...
Data cleaning: I used Power Query for the transformation of the Date, Meta score, Genre, USA Gross columns, and Power BI for data visualization
So, let’s get started.
What is the percentage share of their movies in each genre?
DC has produced more movies in Animation, Short movies and Documentaries than Marvel. Marvel, on the other hand, has done more projects in Sci-Fi, Comedy and Drama than DC.
Who produced the highest and lowest-grossing movies?
The “Avengers: Endgame” and “Black Panther” top the list of highest-grossing movies at $854.4M and $700M, respectively. Both are Marvel’s movies. At the same time, DC has “The Dark Knight” and “The Dark Knight Rises” as its top-grossing movies.
The lowest-grossing movies are mostly DC’s.
So, who has the most yearly gross?
2018 was a big year for Marvel, grossing a record $1.8Billion. DC did quite well in 2016, with $655.5M.
The average yearly gross for Marvel and DC stands as $768M and $251.1M respectively.
How many movies have been released over the years?
With a yearly average of 5 movies, DC has released more movies than Marvel’s 4.
What’s the average IMDb and Meta rating for the two brands?
Wait, hold on.
What are IMDb and Meta ratings?
I’m glad you asked.
IMDb is the world’s most popular source for movies, TV, and celebrity content. Registered users on the platform can cast a vote from 1 to 10 on every released title in the database. Individual votes are then aggregated and summarized as a single IMDb rating, visible on the title’s main page. A good IMDb score has a rating of 60 or more and bad if less than 60.
A Meta score is a weighted average of reviews from top critics and publications for a given movie, TV shows, video games, or album.
Got it?
Now let’s get back to business.
DC has more average IMDb score of 7.82 than Marvel’s 7.52. With movies like “WWE 24", “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D” and “The Punisher” - all Marvel’s projects, and the “Duck Dodgers”, “Batman: Arkham Asylum”, and “Superman: The Animated Series” - all DC’s, have the most IMDb score.
Meta score;
Marvel has more average Meta score of 65 than DC’s 58. Movies like “The Iron Giants”, “The Dark Knight”, “Superman 1&2" by DC and Marvel’s “Black Panther”, “Iron Man”, “Avengers: Endgame” and “Guardian of the Galaxy” top the list of movies with the most meta rating.
Which brand keeps you glued to your screen for a long time?
Marvel has an average movie runtime of 1 hour, 24 minutes and 46 seconds while DC averages 54 minutes, 33 seconds.
What audience are they targeting?
They are more focused on producing movies for consumers in PG-13, TV-PG and TV-14 than any other rating category. However, DC have more movies in all rating categories than Marvel.
And lastly, which directors have made fortunes?
Anthony Russo, Joe Russo, Christopher Nolan and Joss Whedon have made gold as directors of these blockbuster movies.
Some interesting things to note about this analysis;
- DC has done more projects than Marvel. But Marvel projects are more successful.
- Marvel movies are longer in terms of duration than DC’s.
- DC has long dominated the Animation genre while Marvel has kept it going in the Action and Sci-Fi scene.
- Marvel has more audience acceptance.
- Their contents are mostly for people above 13 years.
So who claims victory? I will let you decide. As for me, it doesn’t matter if Aquaman isn’t Sub-Mariner as long as both characters have stories worth seeing.
Thanks for reading.
Please let me know what you think.
