This summer gave us two superhero movies with remarkably different outcomes. Supergirl arrived in June with a major studio behind it, a recognizable DC character and a reported production budget of $170 million. It finished its theatrical run with approximately $72 million domestically and $126 million worldwide, according to The Numbers.

Then came Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Its opening weekend alone brought in more than $360 million domestically, nearly five times Supergirl's entire domestic run. Three weekends later, Spider-Man had reached roughly $786 million domestically and crossed $2 billion worldwide.

Those numbers are so far apart that simply comparing the popularity of the characters doesn't tell us enough. Spider-Man unquestionably entered the summer with advantages Supergirl didn't have, including an established film franchise and an audience that had already developed a relationship with this version of the character. Still, there is another difference worth examining because it may tell us something about where theatrical movies are heading.

Spider-Man felt like something you needed to see now. Supergirl felt like something you could see eventually. In a world where audiences know most movies will eventually become available at home, that distinction may be becoming one of the most important factors in theatrical exhibition.

Before anyone had seen Brand New Day, the movie carried the weight of everything that came before it. Audiences wanted to know where the story would go next, and seeing it opening weekend meant participating in the conversation before spoilers were everywhere. The movie wasn't asking audiences to begin a relationship with Spider-Man; it was asking them to continue one.

The numbers show just how powerful that urgency became. Spider-Man generated approximately $72 million from previews before its official opening day, according to The Numbers. It then delivered a $360 million domestic opening weekend from 4,487 theaters.

Supergirl opened to approximately $37 million domestically from 3,602 theaters. Its domestic run eventually reached about $72 million, meaning its entire theatrical run barely equaled Spider-Man's previews. That comparison doesn't tell us which movie was better, but it tells us something about how differently audiences perceived the need to see them immediately.

Box-office performance is influenced by marketing, competition, release timing, franchise strength and plenty of other factors. We can't look at grosses and confidently assign a single cause to either movie's performance. What we can see is that one became a cultural event audiences wanted to join immediately, while the other never developed comparable theatrical urgency.

That may be the more important lesson. Hollywood doesn't simply need movies audiences want to see. Increasingly, it needs movies audiences don't want to wait to see.