PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie is the best superhero movie for years!

I have a 3 year old son who over the last few months has been into PAW Patrol (thanks Nanny) and by function of it playing 50 times in my house I’ve watched the movie multiple times and I’ve concluded that PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie (2023) is the best superhero movie for and the numbers support this hypothesis.

I can’t write this piece without mentioning the MCU and its post-Endgame undoing. It began with RDJ saying “I am Iron Man” back in 2008 and it ended when he snapped his fingers in Endgame. Marvel and Disney have consistently fumbled with each MCU outing since. Whether it being a box office flop, not resonating with audiences or just down right awful.

Thor 4 — awful
Spiderman — good but the fan service only works the first time and only in theatres
Eternals — god awful
Shang-chi — rare delight
Doctor Strange — mid
Guardians 3 — okay
Black Panther 2 — mid
Ant Man 3 — mercy me
The Marvels — didn’t bother

And the “TV shows” aka streaming content

WandaVision — actually interesting concept
Falcon — yawn
Moon Knight — bad
Ms Marvel — lol
She-Hulk — mercy me
Secret Invasion — couldn’t make it passed one episode

Marvel and Disney just don’t respect you, the audience, or even their own IP at this point. It’s baffling. Do they hate money. Currently, my default is disinterest in upcoming MCU projects and pre-Endgame it was the total inverse.

On the other side of the aisle we’ve of the DCEU or whatever they are calling it these days. It’s always been a mixed bag of epics and epic fails, but I’ll focus on some after the Endgame era (2019+)

Joker — chef kiss
Aquaman — ok
Shazam — silly
Wonder Woman 1984 — fuck
The Batman — a real movie
The Flash — mid

And we have the “others” which are all bad if they are not animated. Madame Web vs Spider-verse.

Back to PAW Patrol. I have a 3 year old so naturally I have watched this movie in fragments around 50 times in the last month. I have to say it’s not even bad, just a bit silly for younger kids in parts and narratively there’s some leaps. Yes, I have overanalysed a kids movie. Overall, it achieves what it sets out to be; a fun and entertaining movie for younger audiences.

Budget: $30m Marketing: $10m Box office: $202m Score: 5.9/10 Profit/loss: $162m

Compare those numbers to The Marvels

Budget: $220m (+$55m from UK gov) Marketing: $100m Box office: $209m Score: 5.5/10 Profit/loss: -$111m

And the latest, Madame Web (Let’s be clear this only made as much as it did because people were hate-watching it)

Budget: $100m Marketing: $50m-$100m Box office: $99m Score: 3.8/10 Profit/loss: -$49m to -$99m

I’m fairly certain that Madame Web was only made because Sony need to do something with the Spider-man IP to retain the rights and the rights to Spider-man are worth more than taking a the L on this. Perhaps, it’s actually a tax-loss harvesting technique.

It’s bizarre to me that excluding a few notable exceptions that superhero movies have been totally neglected in terms of quality. It’s clear to me that PAW Patrol is one of the best superhero movies in years.