Iron Man 3 Beats Fast and Furious 6 As The Highest-Grossing Movie of 2013

Iron Man 3 is officially the most financially successful movie of this year, topping the worldwide box office with $1.2 billion (£729 million) in earnings, putting it ahead of Despicable Me 2 and Fast & Furious 6.

The Marvel character, played by Robert Downey Jr, is the biggest earning superhero, raking in more than $3.8 billion (£2.3 billion) over his four big screen appearances, including The Avengers.

The Iron Man movies have also managed to outsell all Batman movies, including the Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher adaptations. Collectively, that franchise has profited $3.7 (£2.2) billion which puts the Spiderman movies in third place with $3.2 (£1.9) billion but that could change next year following the second Amazing Spiderman movie.

Superman is by far the weakest superhero but the blame for that lies with the poor 2006 adaptation, which totally bombed. The franchise has taken only $1.2 billion (£729 million) and that is only because Man of Steel, starring Henry Cavill, made a sweet profit, putting it at sixth place in this year's list.

This has also been a good year for animated movies with Despicable Me 2 in second and Monsters University in fifth place. The Croods and the latest Disney effort, Frozen, were also in the top 20, according to figures compiled by Box Office Mojo. 

It is a shame that only four films in the whole top 20 are completely original. All the others were sequels, franchises or based on an existing book, comic or TV series. The most successful original movie was Gravity, the space movie starring Sandra Bullock, which made $652 (£396) million.

The other three original movies were The Croods, Pacific Rim and Now You See Me. The latter took $351 (£213) million at the box office when it only cost $75 (£45) million to make, so it is no surprise that the studio, Lionsgate, has a sequel currently in the works.

The top 20 grossing movies of 2013:

1. Iron Man 3 - $1,215,439,994 (£729 million)

2. Despicable Me 2 - $918,573,535 (£557 million)

3. Fast & Furious 6 - $788,679,850 (£487 million)

4. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire - $771,484,011 (£468 million)

5. Monsters University - $743,559,607 (£451 million)

6. Man of Steel - $662,845,518 (£402 million)

7. Gravity - $652,394,288 (£396 million)

8. Thor: The Dark World - $627,858,622 (£380 million)

9. The Croods - $587,204,668 (£356 million)

10. World War Z - $540,007,876 (£328 million)

11. Oz the Great and Powerful - $493,311,825 (£299 million)

12. Star Trek Into Darkness - $467,365,246 (£283 million)

13. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug - $426,244,000 (£258 million)

14. The Wolverine - $414,828,246 (£251 million)

15. Pacific Rim - $407,602,906 (£247 million)

16. GI Joe: Retaliation - $375,740,705 (£227 million)

17. Frozen - $363,012,773 (£220 million)

18. Now You See Me - $351,723,989 (£213 million)

19. The Hangover Part III - $351,000,072 (£213 million)

20. The Great Gatsby - $348,840,419 (£211 million)

Source: Box Office Mojo