Marvel movies have made up 30% of the total US box office for 2021. The US box office brought in approximately double the earnings in 2021 compared to 2020, where mass closures due to the pandemic hit the movie theater industry hard. 2021 however saw many areas lifting restrictions and allowing for cinema-goers to get back to the big screen. Whilst some notable films hit theaters during the year, such as Daniel Craig's last Bond outing in No Time To Die and the epic showdown that was Godzilla vs. Kong, it was Marvel that was releasing the most films throughout the year.
Black Widow was the first Marvel film to release in 2021 and hit both theatres and streaming in May. Whilst the film made $183.6 million at the US box office, a fairly low sum for Marvel, Black Widow also made money on sales from Disney+'s Premier Access. Following Black Widow came Venom: Let There Be Carnage, which managed to make it to the 7th highest-grossing film of the year, a huge success for Sony. Whilst the venom franchise is not a part of MCU cannon (minus a brief crossover in Venom 2's end-credit scenes), Venom remains a Marel property. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings followed shortly after, which managed to make more than Black Widow in theaters, though didn't receive a simultaneous Disney+ release. After a long gap, Marvel was back in theaters again with Eternals in November. Whilst the team-up did well for pandemic times, there was a drop compared to its predecessor. However, the brief lull in Marvel's box office swiftly changed when Spider-Man: No Way Home was released and cracked over $1 billion worldwide, with box office numbers still increasing.
With the number of releases and the popularity of Marvel, it comes as little surprise that, according to The Wrap, 30% of the total US box office was made up of Marvel films. The huge popularity of No Way Home significantly boosted box office numbers across the globe. Combined with the four other Marvel releases from 2021, Marvel's box office share was "higher than the market share for any studio in 2021". Given the amount of money Marvel movies brought in, they have contributed significantly to helping the box office begin to recover.
Notably, two of the five Marvel releases of 2021 were directly linked to Sony. Both Spider-Man: No Way Home and Venom: Let There Be Carnage made a massive contribution to the US box office for the year, and both actually earned more globally than any of the other Marvel films that hit theaters during the year. No Way Home easily became the highest-grossing film in the US, followed by Shang-Chi, which managed to make more money than Venom domestically. Even by only judging the numbers based on the US box office, however, Venom is fairly close behind, taking third place for domestic box office, meaning Sony's Marvel films were both in the top 3 for domestic box office and the top 10 globally.
Given the huge successes for Marvel and Sony, it reinforces the idea the two movie giants have a lot to gain by continuing their work together. In a year that saw some low box office numbers, such as The Last Duel which starred Adam Driver and Matt Damon, which struggled to pull in an audience despite a very positive critical response, or Chaos Walking with Daisy Ridley and Tom Holland, a film based on an award-winning novel called The Knife of Never Letting Go, Marvel's accomplishment is no small feat. Whilst many of the films did not reach what they may have in pre-pandemic times, their success despite it all shows how Marvel manages to get people to the big screen like no other franchise.
Source: The Wrap
