I Can't Believe Marvel & DC's Last 3 Big Live-Action Superhero Franchises Ended The Same Weird Way

I'm surprised that the last three superhero movie franchises developed by Marvel and DC, outside the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the DC Universe, have all ended in the same disappointing way. In the last few decades, there have been many attempts at adapting epic events and characters from Marvel and DC Comics into some huge and expansive live-action movie franchises. I'm not alone in favoring Marvel Studios' ever-growing MCU, while the new DCU, under the leadership of James Gunn and Peter Safran, is also looking promising, but not all superhero movie franchises have been so lucky.

Outside the MCU and the newly-rebooted DCU, 20th Century Fox's X-Men Universe, the DC Extended Universe and Sony's Spider-Man Universe have all delivered their own interpretations of these stories from Marvel and DC Comics. All these franchises have also come to an end, the most recent being the SSU, with 2024's Kraven the Hunter marking its final movie. I can't say I've been surprised that these franchises have been canceled, but I have been quite surprised to watch them all come to an end in, unfortunately, similar ways.

The New Mutants Ended Fox’s X-Men Franchise With A Whimper

The New Mutants Ended Fox's X-Men Universe On August 28, 2020

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Back in 2020, The New Mutants marked the sorry demise of 20th Century Fox's X-Men franchise, which introduced an entire world of mutant heroes and villains into live-action before any other superhero franchise had legs. Fox produced 13 movies in the X-Men franchise, kicking off with 2000's X-Men and coming to an end shortly after Disney's acquisition of Fox was finalized in 2019. Unfortunately, I do not consider The New Mutants to be a fond farewell to the X-Men franchise, and Josh Boone's movie actually encapsulated everything that was wrong with the franchise.

Fox X-Men Universe Movie Release Date Box Office X-Men July 14, 2000 $296.3 million X2: X-Men United May 2, 2003 $407.7 million X-Men: The Last Stand May 26, 2006 $460.4 million X-Men Origins: Wolverine May 1, 2009 $373 million X-Men: First Class June 3, 2011 $353 million The Wolverine July 26, 2013 $414.8 million X-Men: Days of Future Past May 23, 2014 $746 million Deadpool February 12, 2016 $782 million X-Men: Apocalypse May 27, 2016 $543.9 million Logan March 3, 2017 $619.2 million Deadpool 2 May 18, 2018 $785 million Dark Phoenix June 7, 2019 $252.4 million The New Mutants August 28, 2020 $49.2 million

The box office draw of The New Mutants is emblematic of the X-Men franchise's disappointing ending, though this surely was impacted by restrictions brought about during the COVID-19 pandemic, too. I absolutely loved several movies in Fox's Marvel franchise, with X2, First Class, Days of Future Past, Logan and the Deadpool movies standing out as my favorites. However, the lack of care given to Dark Phoenix and The New Mutants amid Disney's acquisition of Fox meant that the franchise ended incredibly poorly, though Marvel Studios has since paid homage to the old franchise.

Related I Still Can’t Get Over How Bad 2020 Fumbled A Perfect X-Men Movie Setup In 2020, when most audiences were not going to the movies, a much delayed X-Men spinoff was released that failed to connect with audiences.

2024's Deadpool & Wolverine canonized Fox's X-Men franchise, its reality now dubbed Earth-10005, in the MCU's multiversal timeline, bringing back Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool and several other notable heroes from the Fox days. I loved that Fox's franchise was honored, as the X-Men film series laid the foundations for the more-successful superhero franchises of now, namely the MCU. However, the dwindling ending of the franchise with The New Mutants set the standard for superhero franchises to end in its wake.

Your Rating close 10 stars 9 stars 8 stars 7 stars 6 star 5 stars 4 stars 3 stars 2 stars 1 star 0/10 Leave a Review Your changes have been saved My List My Favorite Movies My Watchlist Success! The New Mutants Where to Watch stream

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buy Not available Not available Not available *Availability in US Release Date August 26, 2020 Runtime 99 minutes Director Josh Boone

Aquaman & The Lost Kingdom Was A Weird Ending For The DCEU

Aquaman & The Lost Kingdom Ended The DC Extended Universe On December 22, 2023

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Similarly to The New Mutants, 2023's Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom brought the DC Extended Universe (DCEU) to an end after the cancelation of the franchise had already been confirmed. James Gunn and Peter Safran took over as co-CEOs of the then-new DC Studios at the end of 2022, and the former announced DC Studios' plans to reboot the DCEU in January 2023. We then saw this announcement have a massively detrimental effect on the DCEU movies yet to release in 2023, including Shazam! Fury of the Gods, The Flash, Blue Beetle and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.

DC Extended Universe Movie & TV Show Release Date Box Office Man of Steel June 14, 2013 $670 million Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice March 25, 2016 $874.4 million Suicide Squad August 5, 2016 $749.2 million Wonder Woman June 2, 2017 $824 million Justice League November 17, 2017 $661.3 million Aquaman December 21, 2018 $1.152 billion Shazam! April 5, 2019 $367.8 million Birds of Prey February 7, 2020 $205.5 million Wonder Woman 1984 December 25, 2020 $169.6 million Zack Snyder's Justice League March 18, 2021 N/A The Suicide Squad August 5, 2021 $168.7 million Peacemaker Season 1 (TV) January 13, 2022 N/A Black Adam October 21, 2022 $393.5 million Shazam! Fury of the Gods March 17, 2023 $134.1 million The Flash June 16, 2023 $271.4 million Blue Beetle August 18, 2023 $130.8 million Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom December 22, 2023 $439.4 million

As the sequel to DC Films' most-successful movie, 2018's Aquaman, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, unsurprisingly, performed the best out of DC's 2023 movies. However, the movie was still negatively received, marking a sorry demise of the DCEU after several years of disappointing releases, behind the scenes controversies and a lack of direction. Filmmaker Zack Snyder had the clearest direction for the early DCEU, but his vision was squandered after he left due to a personal tragedy during the development of Justice League, which caused me and many others to lose faith in the franchise.

Related 12 Great DC Characters Failed By The DCEU Over the years, the DCEU included several classic characters from DC's rich history, but not all of them were done right by the cinematic universe.

Since The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker were two of the most positively-received projects in the DCEU's later years, creator James Gunn was hired in a permanent and more creatively-controlling capacity to reinvent DC's live-action franchise. The new DCU kicked off with Creature Commandos at the beginning of December, and will begin to expand with a Superman reboot in July 2025, which I'm very excited about. Hopefully, Gunn and Safran's DCU will help us forget about the disappointments of the DCEU's ending, as I think most would rather just forget about it.

Your Rating close 10 stars 9 stars 8 stars 7 stars 6 star 5 stars 4 stars 3 stars 2 stars 1 star 0/10 Leave a Review Your changes have been saved My List My Favorite Movies My Watchlist Success! 14 5.9/10 Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom Where to Watch stream

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buy Not available Not available Not available *Availability in US Release Date December 22, 2023 Runtime 124 Minutes Director James Wan

Kraven The Hunter Is The Final Nail In The SSU’s Coffin

Kraven The Hunter Premiered On December 13, 2024

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It's rare that a live-action superhero shared universe begins and we can tell that it's doomed to fail from the start, but that's exactly what I predicted for Sony's Spider-Man Universe (SSU). In December 2024, The Wrap (via Discussing Film) reported that Kraven the Hunter would be the final movie in the SSU, as Sony will instead shift its focus to the MCU's Spider-Man 4, the animated Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse sequel and the live-action Spider-Noir series. As the shortest franchise and the most crammed-full of disappointments, I'm not surprised the SSU is coming to an end.

With only six films comprising the entire franchise, the SSU is different to the larger Fox X-Men franchise and the DC Extended Universe. Notably, both the X-Men and DC franchises were forced to conclude due to studio changes, but Sony could easily continue the SSU. Thankfully, however, Sony seems to have been listening to us, the fans, as there has been overwhelming criticism aimed at the quality and impact of its Marvel franchise. Many even hope the rights to Spider-Man and his related characters from Marvel Comics are handed to Marvel Studios, though I think this is unlikely.

Sony's Spider-Man Universe Movie Release Date Box Office Venom October 5, 2018 $856.1 million Venom: Let There Be Carnage October 1, 2021 $506.8 million Morbius April 1, 2022 $167.5 million Madame Web February 14, 2024 $100.5 million Venom: The Last Dance October 25, 2024 $475.5 million Kraven the Hunter December 13, 2024 $26 million (as of December 16, 2024)

Even though huge talents, such as Jared Leto, Matt Smith, Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney and, more recently, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, have been involved with the SSU, it's only the Venom trilogy that has been mildly successful. I've even considered the Venom movies to have huge problems, however, so I never found myself gelling with the SSU, and will frankly be happy to see the end of the franchise. Luckily, the futures of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the DC Universe look bright - I only hope these franchises don't come to sorry conclusions like Marvel and DC's biggest franchises before them.

Your Rating close 10 stars 9 stars 8 stars 7 stars 6 star 5 stars 4 stars 3 stars 2 stars 1 star 0/10 Leave a Review Your changes have been saved My List My Favorite Movies My Watchlist Success! 37 7/10 Kraven the Hunter Kraven the Hunter explores the origin story of Sergei Kravinoff, known as Kraven, as he navigates his tumultuous relationship with his father, Nikolai. This path of vengeance sets Kraven on a journey to become a formidable hunter with a reputation for fearsome brutality. Release Date December 13, 2024 Runtime 127 Minutes Director J.C. Chandor

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