Are Superhero films dying?

[trappedslider]

The Question doesn't get a movie but Ant Man gets three? Where's the justice in this world??

And after he told us the true purpose of the plastic tips at the end of our shoe laces

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

My Hero Academy and One Punch are manga inspired in Western superheroes. The key should be good stories and good characters, even when they were focused into comedy.

My niece said Ant-man movies was very fun.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Honestly, when it comes to Marvel I think some of the problem is that they're a victim of their own success; some of their material was so good (at least from the perspective of their fandom as a whole) that any step down from that is seen as a failure. When the reality is, you're going to have peaks and valleys no matter what.

(DC and the few independent superhero movies are a different, and more complex set of questions IMO).

 

[Clint_L]

By my reckoning there have been four truly great superhero films: The Incredibles, The Dark Knight, Into the Spiderverse, and End Game. Maybe Black Panther and Spider-Man 2. I’d put The Incredibles at number one.

That’s not bad for genre film, but it has gotten pretty stale lately.

For television there’s Watchmen.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Well that does raise a good point. The Dark Knight Trilogy, Raimi Spider-man films, and Phase 1-3 MCU movies people tend to include in the most recent heyday of superhero movies were... how best to say it?... better overall because of some bright spots, rather than all-around good. I bet each of us differ in which of the films hit the overall-good threshold, but generally agree there were stinkers, partial-hits, and fillers (anyone have strong opinions on Thor 1 or Iron Man 2?). I think superhero movies are similar to the Simpsons -- the overall ratio has shifted to the negative, but there are still bright moments, and it is easy to forget how much non-bright moments there were in the early work.

 

[Bagpuss]

So I hear The Flash bombed hard. And I've heard superhero films in generally have been on decline, probably since the MCU Thanos arc wrapped up in 2019 and it lost the most popular actors (including Boseman), oh and plus Covid. Plus, the general aimlessness and over-saturation of MCU and the continued unevenness of DCEU, and the weird splintering of alternate versions (Joker, the Batman movie with the Twilight guy, etc).

It's a DC Superhero movie not about Batman, with a star that has allegations about grooming minors of course is going to bomb. It managed $267 mil worldwide. Blue Beetle did even worse $121.5 million worldwide. I don't know exactly why but DC superhero movies don't tend to get the same audience as Marvel movies (the fact they are dark and depressing a lot of the time can't help).

Marvel's recent releases are of course going to struggle to live up to Endgame, but Guardians 3 Marvel's last movie grossed $845 million, compared with 2 that grossed $863 million, there first outing was $771 million. Black Panther 2 (2022) grossed $859.2 mil.

The Eternals that was generally poorly received about a group of heroes most people have never heard of still did $402 mil, Shang-Chi another pretty unknown hero $432 mil. So both nearly twice the box office of The Flash. Ant-Man Quantumania was terrible and still did $476 mil, but Ant-Man really isn't a big name in superheroes.

Still look at the Spiderman movies since Endgame, Far from Home, $1.1 BILLION worldwide, No way home $1.9 Billion.

Then the Spiderverse movies which considering the art style could be considered a real gamble, the first one made $384 mil worldwide, but the second made $690 million once people knew how good the first one was, hardly loosing steam there.

Wonder Woman (2017), went from $822 million, compared to WW 1984 (2020) did $169 million a massive drop but to be expected with COVID still a big thing at the time.

Captain Marvel grossed $1.1 billion worldwide, be really interesting to see how well The Marvels does. If it is less than the $400 million of second string Marvel movies then yeah it isn't looking that good for Marvel outside their main characters.

I think Marvel have sensibly reduced the number of movies they release in 2021 they had 5 movies out, they are back to three a year now.

 

[Clint_L]

I think we are seeing a general drop off in revenue, but that is true of movies in general post-pandemic. I am more interested in what I think is generally perceived as a general drop off in quality, and the reasons for that. I don't think it is particularly surprising. When any Hollywood genre becomes dominant it inevitably becomes formulaic because film is big business (high budget films in particular), and big business doesn't like risk.

I suspect we'll see the next creative peak in superhero films when technology makes CGI so accessible that indie filmmakers can do reasonable effects on the cheap, so that all those kids who grew up in the superhero boom of the 2010s can start bringing all their wacky and deconstructive takes to the table.

 

[Vael]

Dying, to me, suggests they would go the way of the musical or western, and I don't see that happening, there's enough pop culture credit behind the characters and IP for superhero movies to continue. I do see this as a moment of transition, as Marvel realizes they can't flood the theatres anymore and has lost their bigger name stars, and DC ... continues to do whatever DC does.

 

[Ryujin]

I think we are seeing a general drop off in revenue, but that is true of movies in general post-pandemic. I am more interested in what I think is generally perceived as a general drop off in quality, and the reasons for that. I don't think it is particularly surprising. When any Hollywood genre becomes dominant it inevitably becomes formulaic because film is big business (high budget films in particular), and big business doesn't like risk.

I suspect we'll see the next creative peak in superhero films when technology makes CGI so accessible that indie filmmakers can do reasonable effects on the cheap, so that all those kids who grew up in the superhero boom of the 2010s can start bringing all their wacky and deconstructive takes to the table.

CGI is definitely getting there. Take a look at what Ian Hubert is doing.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Well, I'd argue DC has fought with the fact they often don't seem to know what audience they're aiming at; Marvel has the advantage that, whatever one may think of some individual cases, its had a common guiding hand in Kevin Feige for a long time now, whereas DC only just now got one (and his decision, for better or worse, is to burn it to the ground and start over, which tells you how all over the map the DC output looks to him).