I. Company Policy DC was established in 1934, and 1989 officially joined Warner as a subsidiary; Marvel Comics was founded in 1939 and was acquired by Disney in 2009. Warner adopts a captive policy towards DC, and the film content of DC is completely decided by Warner executives. However, Disney implements a stocking policy for Marvel comics, and Marvel Pictures has full creative freedom and dominance. Disney will only intervene when the interests of the company are seriously affected. As an established studio, Warner has many other popular IP besides DC. DC is not their only trump card, so it won't do everything for DC. Marvel Comics, as a newcomer in the industry whose copyright is transformed into a producer, only holds the card of Marvel Hero in his hand, so he will naturally regard it as the apple of his eye and be responsible for the end. The planning of the movie universe is also more reasonable than Warner's.
Second, DC's film style and box office reputation are mostly dark movies. Since the era of large-scale movies, Warner has often given IP to its trusted directors, forming a "director-centered system". In addition, DC's adult comic novels have also been adapted into movies, resulting in the current situation that DC directors like dark themes; However, the film of Marvel Comics began to take shape after MCU, with distinctive postmodern cultural characteristics such as deconstruction, comity, novelty, nonsense, secularization, gamification and grounding. In the second stage, audio-visual experiments and genre integration began, and the entertainment experience was promoted to a higher level. Judging from the website rating, the best ranking of DC new movies in recent years is only 10, and the other nine movies are basically old movies; Marvel comics movies are relatively stable, with good box office and word of mouth.
Third, the extension industry DC has created an animation universe from the beginning, with a huge fan base; Marvel comics began to expand animation after joining Disney, but Disney's main audience is children, which limits the development of Marvel animation. With the support of Warner, DC launched a series of superhero-themed games, which gained a lot. Marvel comics, on the other hand, made no achievements in games. In terms of short films and TV series, DC started earlier and was launched in the 1940s. However, Marvel comics only started to get involved in recent years, with little output. In the expansion industry, DC is still the leader of Marvel Comics.