Will the superhero/comic book craze ever end ?

Adamantium

The current era began in 2000 with the original X-men, **** me 13 years ago!

Will we look back at the period 2000-2020 decade (I'm guessing) in 30 years, and look at it like people now look westerns now or probably more likely Arnie's/stallone action movie of the 80's, as a product of the time?

I'm surprised the plethora of releases hasn't cooled off and happened already, like it's only a matter of time.

BTW, love some of these movies, but i do think there is a deluge of samey ****e, that's as shallow and braindead as any bad segal action movie from the heyday, yet I can see it right now. I'm thinking of comic book movies that have some wafer thin social commentary in a look "see what we did there way, aren't we so clever, posing and relevant".

Methinks we might need distance from them, to see if they really are all *that*, also see some of that superhuman aestethic flowing into other genres e.g. 2012, Skyfall and John McClane being made of nuclear reactor dome shielding.

Sad Professor

It will end when the studios are finishing milking it to death. And then it will become like the Western - nobody will want to make one ever again.

I don't think it has that much long left in it, though. The crossovers and end of world stuff is going to kill it.

FortuneChip

At this stage they've upped the threat level too much. With each threat needing to surpass the previous in order to be "exciting" they'll eventually reach a ceiling.

One thing I did like about Iron Man 3 (although I didn't particularly like the movie itself) was that they made Tony Stark vulnerable, not just in terms of age but just in the general sense that using the machines were taking it's toll on him. This won't work as well for other heroes though, so instead, they'll look outwards like in the Avengers to bring aliens on flying jet-skis into the picture.

The individual movies in particular will be hit. If Captain America even struggles for a little against the Winter Soldier, can he not give Thor a shout? I know they'll drop some convenient excuses as to why other members of the Avengers aren't available, but that will grow tiresome too.

With the development of CGI and other technologies, it became easier to realise the potential of decades of source material, so while I do think the standard will decrease, I think the craze will continue for quite a while

Boom_Bap

Well, it's not going to end soon given that there are loads more movies on the way:
Avengers
Captain America
AntMan
Guardians of the Galaxy
Batman/Superman

Mickeroo

I hope it never ends.

syklops

Adamantium wrote: »

The current era began in 2000 with the original X-men, **** me 13 years ago!

Will we look back at the period 2000-2020 decade (I'm guessing) in 30 years, and look at it like people now look westerns now or probably more likely Arnie's/stallone action movie of the 80's, as a product of the time?

I'm surprised the plethora of releases hasn't cooled off and happened already, like it's only a matter of time.

BTW, love some of these movies, but i do think there is a deluge of samey ****e, that's as shallow and braindead as any bad segal action movie from the heyday, yet I can see it right now. I'm thinking of comic book movies that have some wafer thin social commentary in a look "see what we did there way, aren't we so clever, posing and relevant".

Methinks we might need distance from them, to see if they really are all *that*, also see some of that superhuman aestethic flowing into other genres e.g. 2012, Skyfall and John McClane being made of nuclear reactor dome shielding.

Strange thread to create considering your username.

Penn

"ever" is a strong word.

It'll go through peaks and troughs, but even if it goes away for a few years, it'll likely come back, rebooted.

The superhero/comic aspect isn't what's important. They're action films with a bit of sci-fi and fantasy thrown in, using recognisable and commercial characters. They'll be around in some form for many years to come, I reckon.

SouthTippBass

Consider this. There will always be another Batman movie coming.

Zubeneschamali

Adamantium wrote: »

The current era began in 2000 with the original X-men

Why there?

1998 - Blade
1997 - Batman & Robin
1996 - The Phantom
1995 - Batman Forever, Tank Girl, Judge Dredd
1994 - The Shadow, The Crow, The Mask
1992 - Batman Returns
1991 - The Rocketeer
1990 - Darkman
1989 - Batman, The Punisher
1987 - Superman IV

etc.

I'm the same; I hope they don't end. For a long time we've had nothing but absolutely terrible comic book movies, but now we're getting good movies that just so happen to be based around comic books.

Zubeneschamali

Deleted User wrote: »

For a long time we've had nothing but absolutely terrible comic book movies, but now we're getting good movies that just so happen to be based around comic books.

and Green Lantern.

ancapailldorcha

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Why there?

1998 - Blade
1997 - Batman & Robin
1996 - The Phantom
1995 - Batman Forever, Tank Girl, Judge Dredd
1994 - The Shadow, The Crow, The Mask
1992 - Batman Returns
1991 - The Rocketeer
1990 - Darkman
1989 - Batman, The Punisher
1987 - Superman IV

etc.

The DC flagship characters aside, most of those characters aren't that well known. I think some of it has to do with how many adults nowadays grew up watching the likes of Batman, Spiderman, X-men, etc as kids.
I don't see the genre becoming as dessicated as Westerns but I do see the enthusiasm for these films dissipating significantly soon. As has been said, the threat level is always going up. In the Avengers, the finale was a battle for New York and, by extension, the planet. The only places to go from here are the multiverse storylines which I think could alienate several cinemagoers. I was quite impressed at how Iron Man 3 adopted a narrower scope and was essentially a Tony Stark film but again, most of these characters are well within their comfort levels so that formula definitely wouldn't work on the whole, or even any other member of the Avengers cast.

super_furry

It's such as easy sell for them, they'll continue for years. The characters are already known and loved, there's a massive fan base already in place and the stories have already been written. The fact that they're now copying the comic book route of having a persistent universe in which characters and films will merge and collide in, will keep them going for years.

Zubeneschamali

I'd put the start of it back with the original Christopher Reeve Superman in 1978: it's right after Jaws and Star Wars established the summer blockbuster, and it's a big-budget comic book superhero movie.

bellinter

I don't think that the "era" will be ending any time soon, just look at whats coming in 2014 and 2015 and just how much money The Avengers and the last Iron Man made. The next Avengers is probably guaranteed to make even more. Batman/Superman then is out in 2015 also. The coverage that the casting of Batman got recently shows just how much interest there is and I don't see that ending any time soon. Everyone is going to pay to see that, even the ones who hate Affleck just so they can say they were right.

I think that the goings-on in the films themselves could certainly do with a change though. With every film lately the stakes seem to be getting higher and higher, with the villain's motives harder and harder to follow (usually he needs a device/object that will cause huge disaster unless our hero can get to it first... sometimes the villain doesnt need a device but he just wants to blow sh*t up anyway and our long suffering hero is just the man to stop him). They are predictable. Iron Man 3 threatened for a long time to be different but eventually came back to exactly the same thing as this. It's all getting a bit on the boring side, but the less things change the more $$$$ come flooding in.

Whether it be X-Men, Batman, Avengers, Superman... whatever. The basic plot is always simialar. Maybe we need a villain to win once in a while?! That would at least be a surprise. Or maybe have no villain.... Batman and Bruce Wayne vying for the affections of the same woman would make for a good rom-com. We could revisit every 9 years then to see how the love triangle is faring!

Bullseye1

Some of these characters have been around since the 40's i don't see these ending anytime soon. I don't see the issue with 2-3 of these a year.

oxygen

I f**king hope not!

As a mid 30's male, the inner nerdy comic book fan teenager has been having a blast the last 15 odd years. The Avengers could possibly have burst the bubble but instead it saved it.

Long may it last

Zubeneschamali

bellinter wrote: »

I don't think that the "era" will be ending any time soon, just look at whats coming in 2014 and 2015 and just how much money The Avengers and the last Iron Man made.

According to Boxofficemojo, the all-time inflation adjusted winners are:

27. The Avengers
29. The Dark Knight

Splitting them? Thunderball. James Bond was once that big.

36. Spiderman (2002).
50. Batman
55. Spiderman 2
63. The Dark Knight Rises
65. Superman

But even after The Avengers, down the list, we have:

101. Iron Man 3

So although some recent superhero movies have been massive hits, others not so much. There's no Thor, Captain America or Hulk in the top 200, and Bond shows how fashions can change: Skyfall makes 178, the highest Bond since 1965!

mike65

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

I'd put the start of it back with the original Christopher Reeve Superman in 1978: it's right after Jaws and Star Wars established the summer blockbuster, and it's a big-budget comic book superhero movie.

That didn't start anything though, the Superman films essentially stood on their own, then the Batman series stood alone, before we started to see a rash of ****ty attempts to replicate that success. THEN the floods gates opened and its been nothing but CGI crappola ever since. I'd like to be optimistic and say these things will just play themselves out but as of now the only way that's likely is if the Chinese start making their own and exporting them and they flop in the west. Hollywood really needs to diversify its mega-buck movies cos right now it feels like all the eggs are in one basket.

bellinter

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

So although some recent superhero movies have been massive hits, others not so much. There's no Thor, Captain America or Hulk in the top 200, and Bond shows how fashions can change: Skyfall makes 178, the highest Bond since 1965!

there is no Thor, Captain America or Hulk there now. In 2 weeks time I'd imagine Thor will be in there for the sequel. Same with Captian America next year. The first films did alright on their own, now that way more people have seen the characters in The Avengers, profits are sure to rise significantly. Iron Man 3 took in over twice as much as the first Iron Man. If the Hulk proves as popular in the next Avengers as he was in the first then a standalone movie is sure to be a huge hit as well.

OwaynOTT

I think the better question is will the Marvel bubble burst?

ScumLord

There's always been superhero movies you can go right back to buck rogers and the green hornet back in the 40s(?).

They wouldn't have had the guaranteed success or budgets of the current batch but then they didn't have the audience either. Just about every 30 year old around these days has read comic books in their life and we all have some experience with all the characters.

Hollywood will kill these off by overdoing it. They ruined just about every other genre out there, IE: Japanese horror remakes and if something else becomes popular they'll make a slew of those until people get bored of those films.

I think they've gotten close to that point now. I have no interest in seeing another superhero film but I'd be a casual viewer. They'll get a bit more out of the fans but eventually even they'll get bored of a constant regurgitation of the same story over and over again. Batman and spider man have been rebooted so many times now they don't seem to be able to get past an origins story and get into the character.

Soft Falling Rain

While I hope the genre always remains alive, I'd be concerned that quick fire reboots will quickly jade the audience.

I think The Amazing Spider-man is an illustration of this, a film that while certainly strong in parts, suffers from almost painful re-treading of old ground at times. TASM2 looks to have potential but you'd have to wonder how much the audience will buy into it.

DC also, I feel, are hurting the Batman character long term with their bungling and stumbling from one short term plan to the next.

As I said, I hope the genre remains forever, but I think studio greed is going to hurt the genre badly in the long term.

Penn

ScumLord wrote: »

Batman and spider man have been rebooted so many times now they don't seem to be able to get past an origins story and get into the character.

Sorry, but I strongly disagree.

Batman has been rebooted once so far. Keaton to Clooney was one franchise. They rebooted it with Bale. Now with Affleck, they said we'll see an older Batman who has been doing it for a few years already, and not a new origin story. At most you could say there's been two reboots over a period of about 26 years (by the time Superman Vs Batman comes out).

Spiderman has been rebooted once, and the current series of films is due to continue as far as 2018.

I'm not saying that to be pedantic, I'm just saying that most of us are probably in an age zone where we were part of the target audience for the first sets of films, but still within the target audience range for the second set of films. But there are plenty who would have either seen the first sets, and had no interest in seeing any future films, or people too young to have seen the first set and only know the second set.

Bacchus

Adamantium wrote: »

The current era began in 2000 with the original X-men, **** me 13 years ago!

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Why there?

1998 - Blade
1997 - Batman & Robin
1996 - The Phantom
1995 - Batman Forever, Tank Girl, Judge Dredd
1994 - The Shadow, The Crow, The Mask
1992 - Batman Returns
1991 - The Rocketeer
1990 - Darkman
1989 - Batman, The Punisher
1987 - Superman IV

etc.

Personally, I think it started with Blade & X-Men... so to be pedantic, 1998, not 2000. None of those other movies you listed there have anything to do with the current era of comic book movies though. I mean, you have Batman & Robin on that list!! :eek:

syklops

Bacchus wrote: »

Personally, I think it started with Blade & X-Men... so to be pedantic, 1998, not 2000. None of those other movies you listed there have anything to do with the current era of comic book movies though. I mean, you have Batman & Robin on that list!! :eek:

Bad as it was Batman & Robin is a superhero/comic book movie.

Turtyturd

OwaynOTT wrote: »

I think the better question is will the Marvel bubble burst?

Backed by Disney I don't think so...although I still think Antman and GotG are going to be a major test of how much comic films the general audience are going to accept. I don't think you can compare comic films to Westerns because the characters (at least the major ones) are embedded in the social conscious so they will always have an audience ready and waiting.

Personally I hope it gets reigned in a bit...as a comic fan I couldn't wait for the first X-men film to be released, same with the first few Spider-man movies but now I haven't seen the latest one and am only interested in Days of Future Past because of Singer's involvement. Most of the Marvel movies I didn't watch until the lead up to Avengers...and while they were watchable they were uninspiring. And while the Winter Soldier has the potential and source material to stand apart from the others it will most likely play it safe.

The success of the films has also negatively impacted on the comics for me with the shift towards 6 issue stories intended to attract new readers when they get released as trades. Its a good idea in theory but it has resulted in a lot of mediocre stories being dragged out to comply with the policy. It has also led to companies going from 'event' to event trying to attract these new readers rather than focusing on the single issue character moments or long term storytelling which attracted people in the first place.

Soft Falling Rain

I think the one thing GOTG and Ant-man will have in their favour is that no-one will be able to question their authenticity. If they fail, it won't be because of following a tired formula.

brianregan09

I hope it never ends either , Waited for years to get good comic book movies and now there coming in abundance, Yes there are still turkeys Fantastic Four and the early Xmen ones (looking back at them now they don't stand up) , Ghost Rider 1 was miserable and thus affected the 2nd one which was an improvement, Hell we even finally got a proper Judge Dredd movie, But wer'e still in jeopardy of getting a 2nd one because of them banking on the bloody 3D taking off most cinemas didn't even have it in 2D

OwaynOTT

Turtyturd wrote: »

Backed by Disney I don't think so...although I still think Antman and GotG are going to be a major test of how much comic films the general audience are going to accept. I don't think you can compare comic films to Westerns because the characters (at least the major ones) are embedded in the social conscious so they will always have an audience ready and waiting.

Personally I hope it gets reigned in a bit...as a comic fan I couldn't wait for the first X-men film to be released, same with the first few Spider-man movies but now I haven't seen the latest one and am only interested in Days of Future Past because of Singer's involvement. Most of the Marvel movies I didn't watch until the lead up to Avengers...and while they were watchable they were uninspiring. And while the Winter Soldier has the potential and source material to stand apart from the others it will most likely play it safe.

The success of the films has also negatively impacted on the comics for me with the shift towards 6 issue stories intended to attract new readers when they get released as trades. Its a good idea in theory but it has resulted in a lot of mediocre stories being dragged out to comply with the policy. It has also led to companies going from 'event' to event trying to attract these new readers rather than focusing on the single issue character moments or long term storytelling which attracted people in the first place.

I hope both Guardians and Ant-Man do well as it may lead to more 'risky' choices. Which hopefully can counteract the inherent safeness that has been evident in most choices so far.
I'm really looking forward to Guardians of the Galaxy though.

Turtyturd

OwaynOTT wrote: »

I hope both Guardians and Ant-Man do well as it may lead to more 'risky' choices. Which hopefully can counteract the inherent safeness that has been evident in most choices so far.
I'm really looking forward to Guardians of the Galaxy though.

I think Guardians has the better chance of being successful out of the two...especially given some of the names involved...a lot depends on Rocket Racoon though I think. I am surprised they have not attached it to the Avengers somehow though...Ii thought that was the purpose of Iron man being in the GotG comic.

Antman for me will be Scott Pilgrim-esque...lauded by those who think Edgar Wright can do no wrong...but really just meh.

Hopefully you're right about opening up risky choices though...for me a Thor movie based on the current storyline would be much more interesting than that of the films...forget about having a human interest...I wanna see Thor fighting other gods, and if a successful GotG paved the way for that I would be happy.

Bacchus

syklops wrote: »

Bad as it was Batman & Robin is a superhero/comic book movie.

An I would not class it as part of (or inspiration to) the current era of comic book movies. The new wave of quality comic book movies started with Blade & X-Men. Blade brought a level of "grown up"-ness to comic book movies and the X-Men movies are still a core part of the scene.