Every Billion Dollar Comic Book Movie Ranked Worst To Best

By Simon Gallagher / August 8, 2019

2018 was a huge year for comic book movies. In total, a mighty 22 films were released, ranging from LEGO animated releases to the single biggest ensemble in the history of Marvel movies. We saw villainous solo movies, new underwater worlds and the curtain of Wakanda peeled back for the first time. So it's no wonder that there was more money spent at the box office on superheroes than ever before.

That year saw THREE new additions to the billion dollar club from the realm of comic book movies alone, with both Venom and Deadpool 2 pushing pretty close to the magic number too. That makes the benchmark for all forthcoming releases that little bit more daunting, even if it is a sign that those rumours about bubbles bursting are manure.

Impressively, 2019 has done it again, adding 3 more and also bringing us the highest grossing movie of all time in the shape of a comic book movie. What was it they said about the bubble bursting...?

12. Avengers: Age Of Ultron (2015)

Box Office: $1,405,403,694

Age Of Ultron is easily one of the most underrated comic book movies of all. Sure, it may have broken Joss Whedon and ended his tenure as a Marvel film-maker prematurely (he had been in line for Avengers 3, too, initially), but it's still a great blockbuster and it deserves a lot better than what Whedon tends to say about it.

Importantly, it also introduces important ideas that would come to shape the MCU: Tony Stark's anxiety over saving the world, superhero accountability and the first seeds of genetic superpowers (which could be the key to introducing mutants, after all). And beyond that, there are things to really enjoy, like James Spader's pantomime villain-like performance and the Hulkbuster v Hulk fight.

It's not up there with the other Avengers movies, but on any other spectrum of quality, it would be far more cherished. Still, it's in lofty company here.