If we define them as feeling like a project of their own, and not just a formula production, let’s include: Reeves’s Batman, Coogler’s Black Panther, and Winter Soldier. A lot feel like they’re formula, but some feel really different.

But it’s not part of the budget.

You’re the one just offering nothing but empty gainsay here. You just wrote that salaries don’t factor in a film’s budget. We’re done here.

I can produce receipts for everything I write. What do you have to disprove Hollywood economics? I was wrong about the Russos; they’re making $80m, not $75m.

The break even point for that movie was $450 million given that number. Also note that Disney traditionally understates its budgets for its tentpole movies to assuage investors.

Given that a movie has to make 2.5 times its budget to turn a profit, let’s start with three guys. RDJ and the Russo brothers make $87.5 million per movie just for their money. That’s $218.75 million minimum if the movie brings in $0. If the movie takes in money, they then get back end money.

And it’s the only one that gives me legitimate chills just at the first beats of the theme. I think I’ll watch it again tonight.

It’s why Superman the Movie remains my ideal as the best superhero movie ever. I felt it more than I felt any other one in the genre.

I get the feeling that any list will draw fire. Mine is basically according to chalk, but there’s a reason why people love those movies.

14) First Avenger
15) Superman 2
16) Logan
17) Super
18) Wonder Woman
19) Spider-Man Homecoming
20) Superman
21) Endgame
22) Shazam!
23) X2
24) Blue Beetle
25) Across the Spider-Verse

My choices for best superhero movies.

1) Superman the Movie
2) The Dark Knight
3) Spider-Man 2
4) Iron Man
5) Into the Spider-Verse
6) Guardians 1
7) Black Panther
8) Winter Soldier
9) Infinity War
10) The Incredibles
11) Unbreakable
12) Mask of the Phantasm
13) Batman Begins
Out of Space

Can I play, too? I’ve missed some recent ones, but I’ve seen the vast majority.

I write this as someone who likes superheroes and likes them being on the big screen. The thing is that I want to see good movies made with love, and not just content to fill out a schedule, which sadly we’ve been seeing too much of.

And my issue with them isn’t their existence; it’s that for a decade they choked every other form of movie out of the theaters. The MCU as it was doesn’t exist, and that’s a good thing for movies as a whole.

They’re not adult movies because their target audience isn’t adults. Superheroes are power fantasies for kids and big kids. That’s all well and good to enjoy, but if you’re watching mainly that, you’re not getting what movies can really do.

If you were visited by three ghosts in Christmas Eve, who would you want them to be?

You mean giant metal tubes that take us way into the sky, higher than any bird flies? Nothing wild about that. (Actually, I think about the wonder of modern life all the time.)