Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man named most valuable hero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe

• Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) is the most valuable character in the MCU, based on gross box office earnings and critical reception, a new study has revealed.
• The findings come as part of the Critic Ratings Study, which collated data from IMDb, Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes to name the most and least reliable platforms.
• The loveable but lesser-known character beats fan favourites Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and Doctor Strange when all MCU appearance stats are analysed.
• While Ant-Man boasts the highest earnings and highest critic score per appearance combined, Captain Marvel is among the highest-earners and Korg the highest-rated.

Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man is the MCU character that carries the highest box office earnings per appearance, and the most positive critical ratings overall, a new study has revealed.

The findings come from the Critic Ratings Study, which analysed the Marvel Cinematic Universe film ratings across three popular review platforms – Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and IMDb – to reveal which is the most reliable source, and which is the most pessimistic.

The study involved pulling together the gross worldwide box office earnings for every MCU film – from Iron Man through to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness – and scaling this against each character appearance (including heroes, love interests and smaller roles). 

This analysis revealed that Ant-Man – first portrayed by Paul Rudd in 2015 in Ant-Man – holds the highest average value per film appearance, with each worth a massive $ 2.4 billion, followed by Captain Marvel with each appearance earning the MCU $2.3 billion.

Ant-Man has appeared in four MCU films to date – Ant-Man, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Endgame – and it seems that fans consider all four instalments to be major hits. 

Of the four films, Avengers: Endgame was the highest-earner at $2.797 billion. It’s surprising that Ant-Man came out on top given he’s missing from the earlier Avengers: Infinity War. 

But it’s not just earnings that Ant-Man came out on top for – the study also collated critic ratings across the three major film ranking databases – IMDb, Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes – and found that, when compared to the earnings, each Ant-Man appearance was the best-received by fans. 

Other well-received MCU characters were revealed to be Thor’s Korg – although he missed out on the overall top spot due to low earnings – followed by Aunt May and Valkyrie. 

Most Valuable MCU Characters, based on critic rankings and earnings

1. Ant-Man
2. Black Widow
3. Falcon
4. Peter Parker
5. Tony Stark

On the other end of the scale, it’s Nick Fury who holds the lowest average value per appearance – likely due to the sheer number of films he’s featured in – followed by Doctor Strange’s Wong. 

Among the lowest-rated characters were Black Widow, Tony Stark, Captain America and Nick Fury – suggesting that fans are over the original Avengers lineup. 

As well as looking at the reception of MCU movies, the study looked to identify which of the film rating platforms (IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic) should be fans’ go-to, based on their reliability and fair representation of recent releases.

Despite Rotten Tomatoes often being regarded as a cutthroat rating platform, the analysis revealed that it’s the best database overall, while IMDb was named the least reliable. 

Rotten Tomatoes also saw the least fluctuation in film ratings when compared to the other platforms – while Metacritic and IMDb showed wildly different ratings for the same titles.

This was also the case for MCU movies, as the analysis reveals Rotten Tomatoes holds the highest average ratings for Marvel films and TV shows (8.4/10), while Metacritic is the harshest platform for comic book fans (7.1/10).

To see the full results of The Film Rating Study, please visit: https://www.bacanaplay.pt/blogue/film-critics-the-best-rating-platforms-revealed/