Why Superhero Movies Won’t Last
The superhero genre is massive. Over the past twoyears, Hollywood has released twelve superhero films – more than in the last twenty years of the 20th century, and featuring as obscure characters as a cryogenically frozen war veteran, a Norse God, a tree, and a talking racoon. In the past two weeks the Avengers sequel Age of Ultron was released, and is already smashing box-office records worldwide, making over $40 million in its first two days.
It’s a testament to the efforts of the filmmakers behind these movies that the comic book genre is now the biggest in the world – the Marvel cinematic universe is the most profitable film franchise ever, and three of the ten highest grossing movies of all time are superhero films. Adjusted for inflation, superhero films combined have made close to $25 billion – and still counting. Understandably, the fact that these films make so much money is the very reason that we’re seeing so, so many of them right now. To the studio executives, superhero films seem to provide almost guaranteed box-office success. It’s part of the reason Disney bought Marvel Studios in 2009 for $4 billion – whilst many at the time questioned the mammoth takeover, Disney proved they knew what they were doing when Marvel released The Avengers in 2012, which became the third biggest movie in history. Apart from a few rare exceptions, all of DC and Marvel’s films have substantially raked in the box office dollars. But can it go on forever? Will the superhero movie “bubble” burst, and if so, will it be any time soon?
To answer this question, it’s important to understand that superhero films, despite their recent ubiquity, are nothing new. The Superman and Batman films of the eighties were huge hits, and helped cement the characters in the American zeitgeist. But it wasn’t until the advent of new CGI technologies, which allowed fantastical encounters to play out on film like never before, that the modern age of comic book films began. X-Men in 2000 and the original Spider-Man trilogy showed film studios that cinema audiences were willing to accept spandex-clad vigilantes on the big screen. In 2008, when both The Dark Knight and Iron Man opened to huge earnings and critical acclaim, it confirmed to the studios that, as Kevin Feige, President of Marvel Studios put it, “this is not a fad, this genre is here to stay”. Since then, there has been an explosion of superhero movies, with about half a dozen released each year.
Those who claim that this trend is not going anywhere any time soon, argue that superhero films have now evolved into a wide-reaching and “undefinable” genre. Take, for example, the last few Marvel movies. Though you mightn’t have noticed it specifically, Thor 2 was meant to be a medieval war epic à la Game of Thrones, Captain America 2 was designed to be a political conspiracy thriller, and Guardians of the Galaxy was a “space western”. When these movies, all defined as “superhero films”, are so diverse and tonally varied, they begin to become more than just a trend or a fad. In the same way that people won’t ever get bored of “kids’ movies” or “comedies”, it could be argued that superhero films have transcended their childish origins and become something broader and undefinable.
But there is another side to it all. Now – no one can argue that any of the recent superhero films have been bad. On the whole, all of Hollywood’s latest comic book offerings have been reasonably fine – and for the studios, that’s exactly the point. Economic downturn means that studios are being forced to make fewer films, and thus, each movie needs to perform well with minimal risk. Superhero movies are perfect for this formula – usually they’re sequels or adaptations, providing a guaranteed in-built audience, and they’re a pure, wholesome option, with universal themes of good vs. evil which resonate with audiences regardless of culture, and thus ensure success globally. But there is a downside: studio reliance on these films means that each film must go through double and triple checking to ensure maximum appeal and success. As Derek Thompson writes in The Atlantic, “Scripts are revised by editors and studied by financial analysts to ensure the plot lines fit with audiences’ expectations… they ensure that the next blockbuster always reminds audiences of the last blockbuster”. What this ultimately means is th
at with each successive film, we’re going to see less originality, less artistic innovation and more homogenisation in comic book films, which is not good news. Last year, cult director Edgar Wright, known for his distinctive artistic directorial style, dropped out of Marvel’s upcoming Ant-Man, replaced by romantic comedy director Peyton Reed, seemingly confirming that the studio is now unwilling to take creative risks, having found a safe superhero movie formula which they can stick to. And for most people, this doesn’t really matter, as long as they keep getting decent movies – and that’s fine. But it’s important to understand that this “homogenisation” will undoubtedly lead to the bursting of the superhero movie bubble. How do we know this? Because it’s happened before.
In the 1990’s, action movies were all the rage – mostly featuring macho heroes like Schwarzenegger and Stallone. But as the studios tried to make each action film ‘live up to the last’, thinking that it would rake in an easy profit, the quality of the films dropped – and audiences lost interest. There was soon no shortage of action movie box office failures, and just like that, the classic, “tough-guy” action movie was gone. Similarly, in the 1950’s, the monumental successes of movie musicals such as Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music (which were also the highest grossing films of the time) led to film studios churning out half a dozen “imitation musicals”, resulting in audience disinterest, very quickly “dooming the genre”. This cycle has also been replicated with Westerns in the 60’s, counterculture films in the 70’s, and romantic comedies in the noughties – again and again, studios ended up with significant losses because they put all their money into a genre which people eventually got tired of. It’s almost inevitable that this will be the ultimate fate of the superhero movie genre. You only have to look at the incredibly full calendar of upcoming comic book flicks: in the next few years, Marvel will be releasing two more Avengers, as well as sequels to Thor, Captain America and Guardians of the Galaxy, whilst introducing new heroes in separate movies, including Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, Black Panther and Captain Marvel – plus they’ll be rebooting Spiderman, again. DC will bring out Batman v Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Aquaman and Cyborg movies, as well as a villain-centric “Suicide Squad”. There’s also an X-Men sequel, a Deadpool spinoff, a Fantastic Four reboot… tired yet?
But who knows – perhaps history doesn’t always repeat itself. Though the Susquehanna Financial Group might have predicted that film studios should expect “growing risks on superhero properties”, they said that in 2011 – and the following year, not one, but two superhero movies earned over $1 billion. So whilst it appears that the comic book movie bubble will eventually burst, the proverbial ‘bubble’ is bigger than any which has come before – so get comfy: superhero movies are going to be here for a while yet.
