The Superhero Movie That Started a Billion-Dollar Franchise Proves It's Still One of the Best

This week saw the streaming comeback of two 2008 movies that redefined superhero cinema forever. It seems serendipitous that they were released within weeks of each other, considering how different they were. While one put a dark, gritty spin on the genre and influenced an entire generation of tentpoles, the other launched the highest-grossing film franchise of all time. The franchise in question has generated more than $30 billion at the worldwide box office over the course of nearly two decades, and it all began with an underdog film that surprised everyone by grossing $585 million worldwide. The odds were stacked against it; it was based on a B-tier character, headlined by an unproven box-office draw staging a comeback, and directed by a filmmaker whose experience didn't exactly align with big-budget superhero spectacles.