Marvel and DC have been competitors for decades. While the primary location for that battle has shifted from the page to the screen, you'd expect that the competition to still be fierce. Suicide Squad failed to match the box-office numbers of Captain America: Civil War and it also fell far behind as far as the critical reception. Knowing this, you might expect Marvel is dancing a jig. While we can't speak for the studio as a whole, Marvel's head of TV, Jeph Loeb seems to be a little too focused on his own work, though he does acknowledge that Marvel seems to be doing something right that DC hasn't found yet.
Regardless of how the people at the two studios feel, there is a perceived competition between Marvel and DC films. Many fans have picked a side, cheering one while being critical of the other. The two movie series can't help but be compared to each other. However, Jeph Loeb who is currently Marvel's head of television, but has also worked on several DC comics, tells The Hollywood Reporter that he doesn't analyze DC's films to any great degree because Marvel is busy doing its own thing.
No. It's funny, we actually get asked that a lot. The truth is, they do what they do and we do what we do. I tend to sort of think about it like I'm not sure that people that make medical shows look at other medical shows and go, 'Why is my medical show better than this?
It's a bit subtle, but Jeph Loeb does seem to take a small shot at DC here, implying that Marvel's work is already superior, and as such he doesn't have a lot he can learn from Suicide Squad. Having said that, he also stops short of making any great judgments about the film this early in its release. saying it's "a little early" to determine Suicide Squad's success.
Jeph Loeb's ultimate point here is a good one, and it's the idea that Marvel and DC are both making their respective projects and they're not spending a lot of time worrying about what the other side is doing. This makes sense because, generally speaking, entertainment is not a zero sum game. Most people who go to movies at all can afford to spend $10 on a ticket to see Captain America: Civil War in May, and then spend another $10 in August to see Suicide Squad. Nobody actually has to choose which one they like more. As such, the goal is not to make a better product than the other guy, but simply to make a good product in general. If you make a good product, you'll make money. If the other guy does, he also gets to make money, but he's not taking any of it out of the first guy's pocket.
If Marvel isn't paying that much attention to what DC is doing, is it really worth the rest of us spending our time comparing the two?
