Fandom Rivalry / Live-Action Films

• Pirates of the Caribbean and The Lord of the Rings can be construed as an Orlando Bloom tug-of-war (he's Will Turner and Legolas respectively).
  • You don't even have to leave the Pirates fandom to find a rivalry. Johnny Depp fans love to attack Orlando Bloom fans on some forums, because they think Bloom is trying to copy him (apparently bearing a slight physical resemblance to someone equals trying to be him in some minds). And then there's the ship wars that break out over who Elizabeth should have ended up with.
• Fans of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Trilogy have achieved rivalries with a long list of film fans:
  • Because they were both superhero movies released in 2008 that became extremely successful, a small rivalry developed between fans of Iron Man and The Dark Knight. While the rivalry seemed to be pretty friendly (most fans were too happy to get two good superhero movies in one year and saw both), a small faction seemed to need to bolster their favorite movie by bashing the other. TDK fans accused IM of being a standard issue Marvel popcorn flick with an over-hyped Robert Downey Jr.. IM fans hit back by saying that TDK was a brooding, pretentious movie that forgot it was supposed to be fun, and featured an over-hyped (and dead) Heath Ledger. The pre-existing Marvel vs. DC rivalry probably didn't help. The rivalry flared again in 2012 when the The Dark Knight Rises was released around the same time as The Avengers.
  • Avatar and Dark Knight fans have fought over whether or not one film deserved more Oscars than the other (mentioned more in depth below).
  • Another The Dark Knight Trilogy rivalry has sparked with fans of the Burton directed Batman movies. Particularly over whether Jack Nicholson or Heath Ledger is better as The Joker (then there are those who like Caesar Romero, clown-whited-out mustache and all).
    • There's also a great feud between fans of Mark Hamill's Joker from the DC Animated Universe and fans of Heath Ledger's Joker.
    • Add Suicide Squad (2016)'s Jared Leto to the mix... or even worse, the Joker by Joaquin Phoenix, who raises fiery debates in comparison to Ledger (ironic, given both actors were friends).
  • Fans of trilogy also have a contentious relationship with fans of the DCEU movies directed by Zack Snyder with Nolan's fans criticizing Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice for trying too hard to emulate or one-up on dark tone of Nolan's movies at the expense of good storytelling.
• Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Everything Everywhere All at Once have one as both are sci-fi films about the multiverse with surreal visuals that came out the same year. Fans of the former film disdain this one for being a big-budget Marvel production that gets more attention and money than an original film they think is superior. This really got started when Jamie Lee Curtis jokingly took a shot at Multiverse of Madness in an Instagram post. Some have even called the film the true Multiverse of Madness.^note It's worth noting that the rivalry is largely one sided. With much of the discourse coming from fans of the former. Fans of the latter, on the other hand, are much less heated in the debate. Either agreeing that EEAaO is a superior film or thinking that both films are good in their own ways.
• MCU fans and DCEU fans because Marvel vs DC and things never change. It doesn't help that the franchises are (initially) as different as night and day. This is further exacerbated by the pettiness of creators on both franchises like Warner Bros. executives dimissing Thor as a B-List title or MCU stars Scarlett Johansson and Mark Ruffalo openly dismissing the DCEU before the films are even released.
  • The rivalry came to a head with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Captain America: Civil War. It started when the two movies were scheduled to release on the same day until DC moved their movie one month earlier. Then the movies came out. BvS was lambasted by critics while Civil War was a critical hit with some Civil War reviews fueling the fire by snidely referring back to BvS, using the movie as a platform to get in jabs at Dawn of Justice. Some DC fans reacted by accusing Marvel of paying critics off and leaving fake reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB. This caused Marvel fans to respond by calling BvS overly pretentious.
  • This rivalry is not just limited to the movies. Anthony Mackie did not help matters in 2016 when he said of Dawn of Justice going up against Civil War, "Bitches step up to get knocked down". This led to more than quite a few DCEU fans gloating five years later that they "got their revenge" in the "rematch" against Civil War when Zack Snyder's Justice League was released the day before The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and got more downloads and views than the latter.
  • Captain Marvel fans have one with Wonder Woman fans. Despite the MCU having a 5 year headstart, it was the DCEU that released the first acclaimed female-led superhero movie with Wonder Woman, which was hailed by critics and audiences as a landmark in female representation and filmmaking. Subsequently, some MCU fans wished that it was their film that was released first and were bitter how Wonder Woman stole Captain Marvel 's thunder while also setting up a high standard that their movie will be judged against, unfairly or not. Conversely, some DCEU fans are concerned that the success of the MCU movie may lead to Captain Marvel displacing Wonder Woman as the iconic female superhero, especially given how Diana preceded Carol in the comics by over 27 years and Wonder Woman was a morale boost to the DCEU. That said, the cast and crew of both movies have a cordial relationship with Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins expressing enthusiasm for Marvel's superheroine movie and Captain Marvel star Brie Larson even admitting to be a big Wonder Woman fangirl growing up.
  • In a carryover from the comics community, some SHAZAM! fans are unhappy that Carol Danvers will be claiming the name "Captain Marvel", which was Billy Batson's original name and the one he had for decades before the appearance of Carol Danvers. It doesn't help matters that a past DC lawsuit against Billy's original creators, Fawcett Comics, lead to the Captain Marvel name falling into the public domain and getting claimed by Marvel, effectively forcing DC to change Billy's name to Shazam in 2011. That said, like the case with Wonder Woman, the cast and crew of the movies have been largely supportive of each other, especially since the films' respective stars Zachary Levi and Brie Larson are good friends in real life.
• Even within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, fans of different movies and characters fight with each other over their merits. Notably, some Captain America and Spider-Man fans complain about Iron Man for his Wolverine Publicity and accused the character of overshadowing other superheroes since he became a major supporting character in both Captain America: Civil War and Spider-Man: Homecoming. Black Widow fans are jealous about how Captain Marvel got her own solo movie first even though Widow had been in the MCU longer. Some Black Panther and Captain Marvel fans were also unhappy how their movies were delayed so that Spider-Man may be included into the MCU with Spider-Man: Homecoming. However, since Black Panther was released in Black History Month and surpassed Homecoming financially, fans have (mostly) dropped their gripes and animosity. Even now, the Homecoming vs Black Panther rivalry is more of civil debate about whether Toomes from Homecoming or Killmonger from Black Panther is the better villain.
• There was a one-sided rivalry between Alita: Battle Angel and Captain Marvel fans. While some simply see Alita as more visually-interesting and original, there's a strange case in that the rivalry is less down to the Alita fandom criticizing Captain Marvel and more a group of viewers using Alita as an outlet to attack Captain Marvel. Following Captain Marvel lead Brie Larson making certain political statements, some of Larson's critics want to support Alita at the expense of the Marvel film as a way of protesting her without coming off as misogynistic. Conversely, a number of Captain Marvel fans, who are mindful of such sentiments, actually encourage people to support Alita since it would lead to more female-led movies with diverse casts and crews.
• Man of Steel fans vs. fans of the Richard Donner/Christopher Reeve Superman movies. The first side is considered a wild pack of ungrateful "highbrows", the other a beehive full of bitter Methuselahs. Of course, plenty of fans like both, but that doesn't matter to the fans engaged in the rivalry.
• Diary of the Dead fans vs. The Zombie Diaries fans. Ironic since the latter is/was Romero fans.
• Die Hard has developed rivalries with (other) Christmas films—and, more specifically, Christmas-themed action films—due to the Memetic Mutation around its setting of being in Los Angeles during Christmas. Some people claim, with varying levels of seriousness, that it's the greatest Christmas film ever made, even though it was actually released during the summer of 1988.
• The success of the Twilight movies comparable to many "boy-friendly" franchises has essentially created a battle of the sexes.
  • 30 Days of Night fans and fans of the director David Slade were at odds with Twilight fans because he directed The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. Twilight fans worried he he was going to ruin it, while Slade fans believed he would finally make the franchise worth the hype. And there's also a Broken Base regarding the fact that Slade chose to direct Eclipse when he said he didn't even want to touch the franchise.
• To a certain extent, Star Trek (2009) versus Avatar fans, due to the latter taking a lot of attention at the 2010 Oscars fans feel was stolen away from Trek. This is mainly the younger fans that Star Trek gained, with its hipper, attractive cast and brisker storytelling, as opposed to Cameron's much longer story and more alien world. And that's before we toss in Avatar's (ultimately lost) rivalry with The Hurt Locker at the Oscars.
  • ...which was filmed by Cameron's ex wife, arguably a huge component in why it won.
  • For that matter, fans of the J.J. Verse vs. fans of the classic Trek series. Many of the latter are resentful of the reboot nature of the former, having desired a continuation of the storyline past the Dominion War. They also often accuse the reboot franchise of simply rehashing the previous films (Star Trek Into Darkness using Khan as the main villain certainly didn't help) rather than doing anything new. Fans of the former frequently cite the slicker visual look and argue the reboot provides a fresh direction for a long-running franchise.
• Going back to the 1950s, there's always been critical contention over who was the greatest Japanese film director at the time: Kenji Mizoguchi or Akira Kurosawa. Later on, Yasujiro Ozu became known outside of Japan and put a new spin on the debate.
  • So the question is, 'Is Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, or Ozu the greatest Japanese film maker?' Yes.
• District 9 fans and Avatar fans for a variety of reasons. For one, D9 fans prefer the gritty, dark world of South Africa to the colorful, optimistic world of Pandora and think Avatar stole District's thunder at awards shows at the end of the year. Avatar fans counter that it is more realistic in its take on humanity, more emotionally involving, and better produced than D9.
  • Interestingly, both movies could be seen as a Darker and Edgier or Lighter and Softer take on the other, respectively, which probably fuels the rivalry. (and much overanalysis by film nerds)
• Fans of The Three Stooges and the Marx Brothers have been somewhat at odds for decades, though most people have agreed to like them both. Same goes for Laurel and Hardy and Charlie Chaplin versus either of the aforementioned comedy acts, or each other.
  • Laurel and Hardy also had an intergenerational rivalry with Abbott and Costello, as typified in the film Stan & Ollie, where Laurel leaves a film producer's office with their last chance for a new film fallen through, only to pass an advertisement for Abbott and Costello go to Mars and Laurel is chagrined at how their younger rivals are still going strong in film.
  • Speaking of Chaplin, fans of Buster Keaton have been at odds with Chaplin fans since the Silent Era, with a lot of Keaton fans seeing Chaplin as over-rated with his over-maudlin attempts at drama because his fame overshadows Keaton, who had a more ironic modern sense of humor. Chaplin fans respond that their hero was a great innovator who was more modern in his own way considering he very rarely indulged in Blackface and other racial humor that Keaton had no compunction against using^note For instance, Chaplin usually only went there when he was in a creative drought in what he later considered some of his weakest films like A Day's Pleasure.
• Several Youtube comment fights broke out between Christopher Nolan fanboys and James Cameron fanboys on almost every Inception trailer in the weeks running up to the release. This rivalry probably started when The Dark Knight was, in the eyes of many, snubbed for an Oscar nomination, but Avatar was nominated the following year despite also belonging to a usually neglected genre and earned more money, and tempers boiled over when Inception hype reached fever pitch.
  • And just like Avatar and The Hurt Locker above, Inception fans also hold a grudge against The King's Speech following the 2011 Oscars.
  • A few vocal Inception fans also have a grudge with Nine Inch Nails fans; they feel that The Social Network shouldn't have won the Oscar for best soundtrack because "it's just 4 notes on the piano", despite many people being fans of Inception, The Social Network and Nine Inch Nails
• Godzilla fans, mostly between fans of the Japanese movies vs. the American remake, you have to praise one and hate the other because you cannot like both.
  • To a lesser extent Showa Era Godzilla (1954-1975) fans vs. Heisei Era Godzilla (1984-1995) fans. At rare times both types of fans will go after Millennium Era Godzilla (1999-2004) fans, mostly the ones that liked Godzilla: Final Wars due to its poor box office reception and lackluster reviews.
  • Godzilla vs. Gamera, sometimes mixing in Clover from Cloverfield. Godzilla fans often boast about how much darker and financially successful their movies are while Gamera fans boast that their 90s movies got more high quality reviews than most of Godzilla's movies.
  • Fans that often argue toward one another on how Godzilla's Revenge, Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla, the 1998 American remake, or Godzilla: Final Wars as the worst Godzilla movie ever for various reasons all over the place including over used stock footage (Revenge), bad music (Space Godzilla), adaption rape (remake and Final Wars), lackluster action (Revenge and Final Wars), ripping off ideas from other movies (remake and Final Wars), bland story and/or characters (all of them), bad dubbing even worse than usual (Revenge and Space Godzilla), bad updated appearances or the monsters themselves be them new or old (Revenge, remake, and Final Wars).
• Godzilla (2014):.
  • A minor one with Man of Steel, with jokes about how Godzilla's battles with the MUTOs apparently caused less property damage than Superman's battle with Zod.
  • There's one with Pacific Rim revolving around debates over which stylistic approach is best for a Kaiju film, the fantastical and lighthearted one for Pacific Rim or the realistic and dark one for Godzilla. Although there's a sizeable portion of people -including Del Toro himself- who'd love to see a crossover.
    • The Godzilla fanbase in general is either friendly with Pacific Rim fans and united in their love of kaiju, or antagonistic towards them because Godzilla is a genuine Japanese kaiju property, not an imitation, and would so totally own all the robots and creatures in that film. It didn't help that Godzilla had sequels and spin-offs immediately greenlit after its box office debut while Pacific Rim's sequel lingered in development hell until it was finally announced in 2016.
• DC Extended Universe has many other rivals that aren't named Marvel.
  • Currently, there is a intra-franchise rivalry between Zack Snyder's fans and fans of the other directors involved in the DCEU. When Patty Jenkins's Wonder Woman was released in 2017, it became the most critically and financially^note Although its worldwide gross is less than that of Batman v Superman, its higher domestic gross and lower budget means that it generated a much higher profit margin. successful DCEU movie up to that time, while also garnering praise from Frank Miller, Richard Donner, and Christopher Nolan. Likewise, James Wan's Aquaman received fairly positive reviews while becoming the first DCEU movie to gross over a billion dollars worldwide despite starring a lesser-known hero who is regarded by the public as a Joke Character. However, some fans of Zack Snyder, who directed Man of Steel and Batman v. Superman, have accused Wonder Woman and Aquaman of "selling out" for abandoning the Darker and Edgier tone of previous DCEU films. This in turn has led to some Wonder Woman and Aquaman fans pointing out that a dark tone doesn't automatically result in a good film and that Jenkins and Wan deliberately choose to make their movies more light-hearted by their own volition. On top of everything, although Snyder personally prefers making his movies dark and gritty, he openly supported the lighter tone that the individual filmmakers decided on.
  • On a separate note, several Superman fans were riled when SHAZAM! (2019) director David Sandberg joked how Shazam could kick the DCEU!Superman's ass and mocked the infamous "Save Martha!" scene from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Sandberg had to clarify that he was being facetious but some DCEU fans took his comments at face value.^note Given how the character was created as a Superman knockoff by Fawcett comics, there are bound to be flame wars about who is the better hero regardless of the creative minds involved in these movies. The rivalry only heated up as not only did SHAZAM! became more critically acclaimed than the DCEU movies starring Superman, but many consider Shazam to be a modernized Superman done right since Billy Batson has sympathetic reason for his glumness and convincingly evolves into an idealistic hero.
  • Even though both properties are co-produced and distributed by Warner Bros., fans of DCEU and Monsterverse (the American shared universe centered around Godzilla and other Kaiju) really don't get along. So far, the Monsterverse films have received more critical praise than the first three DCEU movies with some commentators claiming that the Monsterverse is better at setting up a cinematic universe than the DCEU. Not helping matters is that some Monsterverse fans have spoofed the more controversial scenes in the DCEU like Superman killing Zod in Man of Steel and "Save Martha!" scene in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice using goofy Godzilla memes like these ones.
• Ghostbusters has a rivalry which crosses multiple media: Fans of Columbia's franchise call themselves "Ghostheads," and fans of Filmation's franchise (the one with the gorilla) call themselves "Go-ers." These days, it's less of a rivalry and more of an uneasy alliance.
• One of the nastiest: The Illusionist (2006) vs. The Prestige. Be careful who you discuss either of these movies with. The argument might lead to IQ dissing. Seriously though, it's impossible to find someone who's a fan of both, even though both movies deal with magicians and revenge plots... They just appeal to different folks. Loving one means hating the other. In fact, your love for one is pretty much defined by how much you hate the other. People pick sides based on which one they saw first, which one they saw in the cinema, Bale/Norton affection, Jackman/Rufus affection, belief that if it has Caine/Giamatti in it, it must be epic... But you have to pick a side.
• A minor and friendlier rivalry occurred among the filmmakers and fans of the X-Men Film Series and Spider-Man Trilogy since both series kick-started the return of comic book movies for the new millennium with their second acts often being cited as some of the best superhero flicks ever made.
• As with Sony's The Amazing Spider-Man Series, many fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe criticize X-Men: Days of Future Past just for existing and maintaining FOX's hold on the X-Men film rights, since they wish the rights would go to Marvel Studios. All the more since Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, two characters synonymous with both the Avengers and the X-Men, were in something a legal grey area (and appeared in both franchises). And then there are the accusations of Marvel trying to undermine Fox's success by downplaying its X-Men marketing in the comics and cancelling its Fantastic Four titles, while playing up lesser-known teams and characters such as the Guardians of the Galaxy and Inhumans that will appear in its upcoming movies.^note This is something it isn't doing with Spider-Man, for obvious reasons, but Marvel is known to be on better terms with Sony than with Fox as well. Given that most of these franchise's box office draw comes from movie goers and not comic fans, however, one has to wonder how people got this assumption.
  • Note that this MCU rivalry is different for X-Men than for The Amazing Spider-Man (which has a Fandom Rivalry with DOFP in its own right). Due to DOFP's very positive reception, the rivalry is less "they're turning the series into a Franchise Zombie just to hold on to the rights"^note A criticism of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 by some fans and more "which Marvel movie series/universe is better". While MCU fans claim that the X-Men would benefit from their inclusion in the MCU since it would allow for crossovers and more faithful adaptations, X-Men fans argue out that the X-Men work better in their own cinematic continuity because the "oppressed minority" metaphor would be undermined by the presence of similar superhumans who aren't persecuted.
  • Although the Disney-Fox merger initially seemed to quell the rivalry, in many ways it actually intensified the rivalry with concerns that the X-Men will be cheapened by their inclusion in the MCU. Given how the MCU movies are massively budgeted tentpole movies aimed at children and designed to sell merchandise, some X-Men fans worry that there won't be any more smaller, R-rated X-Men movies made under the MCU banner. Not helping matters is that several of Fox's planned X-Men projects like future movies and a Deadpool animated series were canned in response to the merger.
  • Deadpool (2016), however, seems to have avoided much of the hate, likely due to MCU fans accepting the fact that Disney would never make an R-rated Deadpool movie with the level of sex and violence that Fox allowed.
  • Logan was also able to avoid hatred from MCU fans due to its much more intense depiction of Wolverine with a deep R-rating. However, it did spawn a (mostly) friendly rivalry between Logan fans and Deadpool fans due to the two films' radically different tones.
  • With regards to the Fantastic Four, MCU fans were heavily critical of Fantastic Four (2015) simply for existing, which wasn't helped by the suspicious timing (the reboot of the FF film franchise was announced in 2009 but made no progress until 2014, which was around the same time the rights to the team would've reverted back to Marvel). Fans of the Fantastic Four, meanwhile, were sour against MCU fans in turn and accused Marvel of trying to undermine the movie's success (no official merchandise was released for promotion) and the team itself due to the cancellation of its Fantastic Four titles (although that was caused more by bad sales than anything else). It was ultimately subverted when the movie came out after a deeply and well-publicized Troubled Production to scathing reviews and was a Box Office Bomb, making many FF fans agree that a film franchise of Marvel's First Family would indeed be better handled under Marvel Studios.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) with Guardians of the Galaxy. They were released a week apart from each other, and they're both based on comic books with an anthropomorphic animal as one of the main characters. Didn't help that the film managed to steal the number 1 spot from them at the box office (although Guardians had a higher opening). Even more, Guardians actually took back the number 1 spot sometime afterward.
• Star Wars fans vs. fans of the New Hollywood/"Auteur Era." This is because many New Hollywood fans see the release and overwhelming success of A New Hope as the beginning of a shift in the film industry away from artsy, director-driven films and toward "big, loud, dumb" Summer Blockbusters. In reality, there were many other reasons for the New Hollywood's decline, including the fact that its aforementioned director-led nature led to some truly gargantuan egos springing up.
• Star Wars fandom, and especially Star Wars: The Last Jedi fans, have a bone to pick with fans of superhero movies largely over ideas of aestheticism, theme and entertainment value.
  • The Last Jedi has one with both Wonder Woman and Black Panther. Although the films are critical and commercial hits, while also having non-White Male Leads, the two superhero movies didn't experience as much vitriolic backlash as The Last Jedi. This in turn has led to the fanbases arguing about which film is better at representing minorities while also providing escapist entertainment. Not helping matters is that some of The Last Jedi's more vocal detractors have praised Wonder Woman and Black Panther to deflect accusations of bigotry while also using the success of the two superhero movies to highlight everything they disliked about The Last Jedi.
  • In turn, Star Wars fans has a rivalry with fans of superhero movies, especially the MCU. The Sequel Trilogy and anthology Star Wars movies have garnered a more splintered fanbase compared to the MCU and, to a lesser extent, the DCEU. This led Star Wars fans to claim that superhero movies play it too safe and have spoiled audiences into becoming very hostile to deconstructions and genre-critiquing in blockbusters. Superhero fans, however, pointed out that their movies can be as introspective and thought-provoking and that the Star Wars franchise only has itself to blame for its backlash. It doesn't help that many superhero movies released from 2017 to 2018 have many similarities to The Last Jedi ^note Whether it's having an escapist hero growing into a jaded mentor (Logan and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse), dealing with the past (Thor: Ragnarok and Black Panther), or starring non-White Male Lead heroes (Black Panther, Into the Spider-Verse, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman) but didn't receive as much in the way of fan backlash.
    • It got cranked up when Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame came out. A stream of articles and videos, some by people who had previously defended The Last Jedi, came out in the wake of Infinity War claiming that the Marvel movie had been able to do what Last Jedi had wanted to do but better and without the Star Wars film's pitfalls. Common points were that Infinity War handled subverting audience expectations better, had the heroes make mistakes without seeming stupid, and was able to keep its plot more focused despite having even more main characters. Last Jedi fans were less than thrilled and made their own videos counting these points and criticizing Infinity War, often making jabs at how Thanos's plan makes no sense. The rivalry was ignited again, when the respective grand finales Endgame and The Rise of Skywalker came out in the same year. While Endgame received superior critical reception, some Star Wars criticized Thor's portrayal in Endgame as a more shallow imitation of Luke's portrayal in The Last Jedi. The fact that Endgame would go on to defeat The Rise of Skywalker in overall box office numbers probably didn't help.
• In some cases, the Carry On film series vs Monty Python, mostly due to the fact that Monty Python is commonly associated with the BBC and Carry On is often distributed on ITV (both dueling TV stations in themselves). Unintentionally, the fact that the Monty Python series hasn't been shown on television for years in Britain, yet Carry On occasionally gets an appearance a couple times a year, adds a bit of fuel to the rivalry pot.
• Some fans of The Breakfast Club have a beef with those of Back to the Future for Award Snub reasons: during the 1986 Academy Awards, Back To The Future was nominated for awards that Breakfast Club should have been nominated for (the most notable being Best Song).
• Some Spider-Man Trilogy fans have a beef with The Amazing Spider-Man Series fans over which portrayal of Spider-Man was Truer to the Text and which one handled the characters better. Some fans of the former tend to criticize Andrew Garfield's portrayal and others calling him a Replacement Scrappy to Tobey Maguire's portrayal. Some fans of the latter tend to criticize Maguire's portrayal by feeling that he was whiny and had a lack of personality in addition to comparing his acting to a brick wall.
  • The MCU interpretation of Spider-Man has only further divided fans over where each portrayal ranks. Interestingly, while The Amazing Spider-Man seems to have the least number of fans who consider it their favorite, it's also not often considered the worst. Most Spider-Man fans instead either consider the worst Tobey Maguire's for being outdated and corny, or Tom Holland's for being too sidelined by other MCU characters and reliant on Iron Man. This came to an end with Spider-Man: No Way Home, as the Intra-Franchise Crossover allowed all three Spideys time to shine.
• While there's significant overlap in the fandoms, there's been some sniping between admirers of Alfred Hitchcock and Brian De Palma. The Hitchcock side accuses De Palma of crossing the line from homage to outright ripoff of Hitchcock in his thrillers. The De Palma side argues that De Palma's references to Hitchcock are just part of a larger sophisticated sensibility in De Palma's work, and that De Palma's films were actually better than Hitchcock's later films.
• In April 2018, James Cameron criticized superhero movies and said he hoped audiences would get tired of them soon. One year later, MCU fans took extra pleasure in seeing Avengers: Endgame overtake his box office records. This then resulted in backlash from the Titanic and Avatar fandoms.
  • Cameron also incurred the wrath of DCEU fans with his remarks about Wonder Woman.
• The long awaited sequel Avatar: The Way of Water grew rivalries with multiple movies.
  • A particularly bitter one brewing even before the first trailer was released, between Marvel Cinematic Universe fans and Avatar fans, with the rivalry blowing up after November 2022. It didn't help that many MCU fans remained antagonistic towards the franchise since Avengers: Endgame was able to overtake Avatar for the highest box office in history, only for the latter to retake the spot due to a rerelease two years later. Particular points of contention were CGI and visual effects, and story quality, with both sides criticizing the other's movies for their perceived lack of quality in either aspect. It doesn't help that The Way of the Water was released a month after Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, which also features extensive underwater scenes, or that The Way of Water quickly overtook the box office gross of every MCU film released in 2022 within just over a week of its release.
  • Towards the end of 2022, there's been some growing rivalry between The Way of Water and Top Gun: Maverick fans as well, what with both movies being major blockbuster long-awaited sequels to modern classics featuring older heroes now having to pave the way for the younger generation that are famous for their well-crafted choreography and special effects. The rivalry started brewing as The Way of Water broke Maverick's long-held title as the highest-grossing film of 2022, which is in part thanks to The Way of Water gaining a lot of viewership in China while Maverick did not (conversely, The Way of Water did not gain as much traction in the U.S. as Maverick did). A more tongue-in-cheek rivalry was also present when it was revealed that Kate Winslet broke Tom Cruise's underwater breath-holding record during the filming of The Way of Water, which she proudly made note of.
  • Despite the two films having virtually nothing in common in terms of plot and characters, it started growing one with Puss in Boots: The Last Wish because of how closely they were in release. The Last Wish was lauded for its animation and storytelling and received higher critic and audience scores than The Way of the Water. Puss in Boots fans consider that film to be an Even Better Sequel that “nobody thought they needed” and dislike this film’s box office success, deriding it as a “sequel no one really wanted” not helped by the perception of the the original's lack of clear legacy. It’s mainly one-sided on Puss in Boots fans though, as most fans of The Way of Water either also like The Last Wish or couldn’t care less about the other film.
  • Continuing from the first film is a small rivalry with fans of Avatar: The Last Airbender, which began to flare up again when James Cameron revealed that the sequels will explore other Na'vi tribes that are associated with different elements. With the first sequel titled The Way of Water, which deals with marine-based Na'vis that can be compared to the Water Tribe in ATLA, and the next sequel rumored to deal with the "Ash People", a Na'vi clan associated heavily with fire that will serve a more antagonistic role than the other Na'vi clans we've seen before - just like the Fire Nation, ATLA fans couldn't help but notice how James Cameron's Avatar series seems to have more and more similarities to the animated series aside from the shared title to the point many are now expecting Avatar 4 to feature “Earth” Navi.
    ... If part 3 is called "The Firebending masters, we riot"
  • It started growing one with the sci-fi horror movie M3GAN due to it being one of the only major releases in January 2023. Many Avatar haters who aren't even that interested in the movie started paying money to see M3GAN in theaters purely out of spite. M3GAN having a higher critic score on Rotten Tomatoes certainly helped fuel the rivalry too.
• Among film buffs with an interest in nuclear war films, there's a huge divide between those who prefer The Day After and those who prefer its Transatlantic Equivalent, Threads. Fans of The Day After often dismiss Threads as excessively bleak and feel that the Bowdlerization in the US film actually gave enough hope in it to spur a push towards nuclear disarmament, while fans of Threads criticize The Day After as too unrealistic and praise the UK film for its greater research. Then there's a third camp that appreciates both films and views the rivalry as a huge case of Misaimed Fandom, given that the movies were never meant to be compared to one another like that.

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