Are Superhero films dying?

[Zardnaar]

Apparently Aquaman 2 pre-sales are dire after 1 day so to early?

Shazam 2 levels low.

 

[Thomas Shey]

But that is the question.

I can make a Night Man movie about a rich guy who dresses up in a 'night' costume to fight crime as a detective ninja demigod. I can have a villain with a dumb plan and a damsel in a dress. And have Night Man do beyond dumb ninja moves where he jumps in the air and "flying kicks" like 20 minions.

But that would not be a "super hero" movie....as I just made up Night Man. And Night Man is not a "super hero".

I see nothing from your two prior paragraphs to make your last one true.

 

[bloodtide]

You just described Darkman - Raimi’s homage to the Shadow and definitely a non-comic superhero

Darkman!

But, wait......non-comic super hero? What is a super hero then? Are we just doing the vague "anything beyond a normal hero?"


The point I'm getting around too, is it is more just bad movies.....not a bad type of movie.

Someday we might get an Iron Heart movie....a woman super genius (rich?) playgirl(is that the right word?) character that somehow makes an armored battle suit to fight bad guys. Maybe it will have some humor in it. It sure will have tons and tons of CGI Spam. But...chances are it will NOT be a good movie like Iron Man. And it sure won't make as much money as the "mid t 2/3" Marvel movies.

But will it be a "bad super hero" movie? Or just "a bad movie?"

 

[Thomas Shey]

Darkman!

But, wait......non-comic super hero? What is a super hero then? Are we just doing the vague "anything beyond a normal hero?"

There are a set of tropes associated with superheroes. It doesn't require all of them, but when you have a costume, code name, and superhuman (even if in a vaguely-plausible "we'll probably accept it from a less realistic action hero" kind of way), who goes out and fights evil, you've hit an awful lot of them.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

Someday we might get an Iron Heart movie....

I feel like they wasted that shot with Wakanda Forever. It's hard to feel like a character is a person when their first impression is joy-happily punching superpowered atlanteans without a worry in the world.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

But, wait......non-comic super hero? What is a super hero then? Are we just doing the vague "anything beyond a normal hero?"

Has at least two of:

• Special costume
• Codename
• Superhuman powers
• Vigilante crime fighter

The point I'm getting around too, is it is more just bad movies.....not a bad type of movie.

The Marvels is not a bad movie. It's not a good movie, but it's no worse than about 9 other MCU movies that made pots of money.

People are no longer willing to turn out to the cinema for an average movie when they can wait a couple of months to watch it in the comfort of their own home.

The D&D movie fell victim to the same thing. A fairly good Marvel-adjacent movie did not do well in the cinema. Nothing wrong with the product, it was the market that had changed. Which is why they are starting to talk seriously about a sequel (no doubt for streaming).

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Let me think about this, comics included.

Captain Marvel has always just been there in the comics. She didn't really get people feeling one way or the other, until the comics made her actively fascist when they had their Civil War plotline. Being the first female-led Marvel movie, made certain sections of the Internet get really insecure, and that's the Brie Larson hate train that Youtube still tries to link people to. The movie is fine, but they made her so powerful that they have to keep her off the stage, and it didn't exactly make her lovable (and her very few Endgame scenes were shot before Captain Marvel, so she comes off even worse in them).

Ms Marvel is far and away the biggest success from when the comics tried to introduce many new teen characters at once (like three supergenius teen girls within one week, uhh). Their biggest fault was bogging her down with the 'let's replace mutants with inhumans' angle. It was amazing to see the show manage to capture the spirit of her books while doing its own thing... for two episodes, after which it forgot to be about her and just became an incoherent mess about nonsensical baddie bad guys.

Monica Rambeau has never been a big name in comics, with her biggest contribution being wearing the Captain Marvel mantle during the original Secret Wars. I always liked her, so imagine my vibes when MCU forcefully introduces her character in Wandavision with 'Wanda randomly gives her the powers she's supposed to have, then she'll say 'they'll never know what you gave up' when talking to the supervillain that was keeping a whole town captive and just had to stop doing it'. How is anyone supposed to like her after that?

So, yeah, while much of the active dislike of them is just the Internet automatically really hating having women in their movies, it's also not the strongest basis for a team-up, when the biggest character draw in it relies on people having watched a (very ethnic) teen show on Disney+...


I think Madame Web is the most obscure thing Sony could dig out of their Spider-Man And Related People folder. The backlash would be the same by itself - it's kind of a nonsense premise, and Sony's standards are firmly set somewhere around Morbius level.

Wonder Woman had like a billion dollars? Wankanda Forever made 800 million roughly.

Folks loved Black Widow and Scarlett Witch, Storm from the X-Men (a solo Storm movie when?), Black Cat, Silver Sable, She-Hulk (but NOT the TV version), Jean Grey, Rogue, Pyslock, Emma Frost, Mystique, etc...

The ladies of Agents of Shield were popular, folks loved Jessica Jones, etc..., heck even back on the 70s folks loved Linda Carter's Wonder Woman and the Bionic Woman, Charlie's Angel's were kind of Superheroish, more so the 90s movie though.

I'll also point out that the majority of folks that went to watch the Marvels were men like me, women barely show up at all.

Brie Larson alienated a large part of the fan based by being, very, very unpleasant when she was younger, although she seems to have matured alot and I'll leave it at that. Water under the bridge, at least for me.

Mrs. Marvel should have been introduced in a Spiderman movie, without side lining him in his own movie, get folks liking her, then do her TV series, split the story into seasons instead of jamming all of that in one, with the huge tin switch in the middle.

I can't speak to Monica because I haven't seen Scarlett Witch yet.

Instead of telling fans what they should want, give then what they keep telling you they want.

If you want to increase female viewership BTW, add in more sexy men, it worked very well for Aquaman which did better then the Marvels did among women.

And you need a new face for Marvel that will rebuild confidence in the brand again.

Superheroine movies are very popular, but they need to do better with the male led movies, or it will continue to hurt female lead movies as well, because a large part of the male audience will continue to feel like these movies aren't made for them and their business isn't wanted.

We saw how audiences reacted to the emasculated male statement of DADHAT Director.

You want male audiences in greater numbers, they need to feel like you respect and value them, then they will have no problem coming to movies like hypothetical Black Cat, Spiderwoman, Storm, Gunnverse Wonderwoman, Supergirl, Powergirl, etc..., because they won't feel like they are being erased or humiliated or sidelined.

If you also want to boost female audiences, more attractive men and more romantic relationships.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

You want male audiences in greater numbers, they need to feel like you respect and value them, then they will have no problem coming to movies like hypothetical Black Cat, Spiderwoman, Storm, Gunnverse Wonderwoman, Supergirl, Powergirl, etc..., because they won't feel like they are being erased or humiliated or sidelined.

Seriously?

Not to put too fine a point on this, but erased? Humiliated? Sidelined? What???

Look, the basic default in the superhero movie is to appeal to the male audience. Period.

So you get a ton of superhero movies. And if they succeed, great. And if they don't, then it's for all the regular reasons.

But if, god forbid, you have a superhero movie that is led by a woman, then every single time, it is a referendum on whether or not you can even have ... um .... those types of movies. And every success (and there are plenty of successes!) is completely discounted (see, e.g., your comments about Brie Larson, who starred in a movie that made over a billion dollars), and every failure is because it had the temerity to have a female lead, which is somehow threatening to men? That casting a woman as the lead might erase, humiliate, or sideline men?

Look, not to call you out specifically, but we really need to get beyond this point. It's 2023- we should be able to have action movies with female lead without worrying about men feeling marginalized. I mean, how can that even be a thing? It's not like there aren't enough male superheroes out there, or there's a dearth of roles for them in action movies .... right?

 

[Thourne]

Both myself and my wife absolutely love She-Hulk D+ series.
Mostly for having the guts to do something different, but also lots of giggles.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Seriously?

Not to put too fine a point on this, but erased? Humiliated? Sidelined? What???

Look, the basic default in the superhero movie is to appeal to the male audience. Period.

So you get a ton of superhero movies. And if they succeed, great. And if they don't, then it's for all the regular reasons.

But if, god forbid, you have a superhero movie that is led by a woman, then every single time, it is a referendum on whether or not you can even have ... um .... those types of movies. And every success (and there are plenty of successes!) is completely discounted (see, e.g., your comments about Brie Larson, who starred in a movie that made over a billion dollars), and every failure is because it had the temerity to have a female lead, which is somehow threatening to men? That casting a woman as the lead might erase, humiliate, or sideline men?

Look, not to call you out specifically, but we really need to get beyond this point. It's 2023- we should be able to have action movies with female lead without worrying about men feeling marginalized. I mean, how can that even be a thing? It's not like there aren't enough male superheroes out there, or there's a dearth of roles for them in action movies .... right?

Appealing to the male audience used to be the default for Superhero movies, it's not anymore, they've been trying hard to win over female audiences as well, it just hasn't gone well, except Aquaman.

And there have been plenty of successful Superheroine movies which BTW I pointed out myself, so it how could each one be referendum on them? The successes speak for themselves.

They just need to do male characters better.