Amph Superhero Overload?

I'm fine with and expect srs bsns in other areas of my life but I don't want it near my entertainment. I definitely don't want to have to recall aspects of my English Lit classes, which I hated while I was taking them, in order to fully understand some deeper meaning in my movies.

Not that everything has to be black and white all the time, I love a good nuanced character and ambiguous situation in my movies.

But I don't want to have to analyze the hell out of the story for theme and tone either. There is nothing entertaining about that to me, only a lot of memories of "Why the hell are we reading this dumb **** again and how long before the school day is over so I can throw Ferris Bueller's Day Off in the VHS player?"

It is definitely a matter of taste though, and that's cool.

 

Keep your sophistication away from my fun, Steve Almond.

 

I don't disagree, there are always the themes of heroism and good vs evil in superhero films, as well as the responsible use of power.

Some themes and moral messages are fine as long as the movie writers don't forget how to have fun or otherwise take themselves too seriously in the process.

 

The thing is that superhero films, at least over the past 10 years or so, aren't really a unified genre- they are (more often than not) an element inside a variety of other genres. Even though they are associated by their comic book origins, what they're offering audiences isn't the same type of movie, so they don't blend together into a single genre for them to feel oversaturated with.

Of the 7 films DC has put out in that timeframe, only 2 could really be seen as straight superhero movies (Superman Returns and Green Lantern, despite their space elements, are Earth-centric, typical superhero films) and only one is borderline (Batman Begins).

The others include an epic crime & terrorism drama (The Dark Knight), an urban war film (The Dark Knight Returns), a sci-fi 9/11 disaster film (Man of Steel) and whatever you want to describe Watchmen as being.

And, currently, are only making 1 more film, with a potential spin-off/sequel to follow over the next 3-4 years (depending on if they shoot back-to-back or not).

And, on the Marvel side, you have the licensed properties. Yes, the Spider-Man, X-Men & FF films have all been traditional superhero fare (with exception to The Wolverine), but Ghost Rider and Punisher are quite different (supernatural horror/action and revenge/vigilante action). Blade straddles the line somewhere inbetween, i suppose.

But those are lesser examples. Just look at the MCU films (often the focus of the "superhero traffic jam" talk). The first two Iron Man films are practically their own subgenre. Iron Man 3 turns things into techno thriller/Lethal Weapon hybrid. Cap 1 was a WW2 serial. Cap 2 is a modern political thriller. Thor 1 was a fish-out-of-water/Shakespearean family drama hybrid. Thor 2 is a fantasy/medieval epic. Incredible Hulk was Bourne manhunt/chase film. Avengers was an alien invasion movie. GOTG is space opera. Ant-Man will likely have a comedic leaning. Doctor Strange will likely be a supernatural horror mix.

Very few people are going to see these as the same type of film, outside of their comicbook origins/branding. Combine that with Marvel's limiting of their output to 2 films a year and you end up with only 3-4 films on average each year (and 1 or 2 more every 2 or 3 years when schedules overlap more on occasion). And half or fewer of them will be traditional superhero films.

I don't think you can have a Cutthroat Island for an actively popular genre. Cutthroat Island wasn't the big flop that killed off a dominating run of pirate film genre releases. It was an attempt to resurrect the dormant pirate genre, whose huge failure further killed off the genre for another decade or so until POTC came about.

Usually a genre isn't killed off by a film in that genre failing at the box office (though such things can make studio execs wary of greenlighting as many similar films so output can be slowed), but rather by a different genre emerging in sudden popularity. Sci-fi killed off the Western. Fantasy films rose in dominance over Sci-fi. Superhero films rose up over them, etc.

Alternatively, you see a genre reinvent itself to remain fresh. Die Hard "every man" action flicks took over from musclebound Arnold 80's action heroes. Hong Kong kung-fu/shoot-out-style action flicks overtook the Die Hard clones, etc, etc. The superhero genre has kinda gone this route- the campy superhero films became more serious, then after half a decade of releases started to ground themselves further into more realism, giving us the Nolan films and the MCU and, now, the reboots of other franchises hoping to match their example.

I don't think cyberpunk ever really dominated- they were usually constrained to low/mid-budget New Line and Dimension releases. The Matrix's influence was more of the Hong Kong/anime influence. You had more wire-fu, more bullet ballet shoot-outs. I doubt X-Men would have the wire-fu style fighting it does ithout The Matrix, for example.

I would assume any "same-y" look shared among them has more to do with them having to be compatible within the shared universe than anything else. Recall people were very worried how something like Thor would integrate visually and thematically as a story side by side more earthbound characters.

Success (and quality) wise, certainly- but the mid/late-90's had a pretty good stream of comicbook/superhero films. Besides the Batman and Blade films, smaller stuff like Spawn, Steel, Tank Girl, Mystery Men, etc came out at a pretty decent clip. They just weren't that good or capable of pulling in tentpole numbers,

The thing is that, while connected, they're not functionally the same franchise like Bond- and aren't perceived that way by audiences, either. Watching just the Thor films and Avengers (3 films) gives you one film series that doesn't leave you feeling like you missed an important part of the story by skipping the other 5 films. That brings them down to the typical studio franchise output of a sequel every 2-3 years. It's not like getting 2 Pirates films every year or 2 Hunger Games films every year.

Just a guess, but I'd suspect it has something to do with this:

Avengers- $1.51 Billion
Iron Man 3- $1.21 Billion
Dark Knight Rises- $1.08 Billion
Dark Knight- $1.00 Billion
Amazing Spider-Man- $0.75 Billion
Man of Steel- $0.66 Billion
Thor 2- $0.63 Billion
Iron Man 2- $0.62 Billion

 

I wanted a uniform presentation. Besides, "Half a Billion Dollars" actually sounds like it's more than "Five Hundred Million Dollars" even if they are equal values.