Okay, this is a bit of an odd blog entry for me to write. As
a lifelong comic book fan, the plethora of super hero movies that have come out
over the past decade and a half have been a treat for me. The past several years
have seen me going to movie theatres positively giddy. But while I have been
getting untold pleasure from the glut of super hero films, I feel it is in the
genres best interest to take perhaps a break from producing so many films.
The simple truth is, we have too many super hero movies. In
the past there might be maybe one super hero movie every few years. Now we’re
getting three or four such films just in a single summer. This summer alone we
have seen Iron Man 3, Man of Steel and The Wolverine grace our screens, with
Thor 2 hitting in the fall. Last summer we had The Avengers, The Amazing
Spider-Man and The Dark Knight Rises, with Dredd and Ghost Rider: Spirit of
Vengeance coming out in the Fall and Winter respectively. This is just too
much, even for a geek like me who thoroughly enjoyed (most of) those films.
And those previous years are going to look practically
scarce if we look at the number of comic book films in development. At this
year’s San Diego Comic Con, DC Entertainment announced a Man of Steel sequel, a
Flash film and a Justice League film all in various stages of development. This
is nothing compared to their chief rival Marvel, who have the sequel to their
giant hit The Avengers in the works, a Thor sequel coming this fall, a Captain
America sequel hitting the following summer, a film based on the obscure
Guardians of the Galaxy franchise, an X-Men: First Class sequel, and multiple films based
around characters like Ant-Man and Dr. Strange. In fact, speaking as a fan,
there are enough comic book super hero properties between the two major
publishers to justify releasing one hero movie a week, never needing to make
sequels (which is what many of these films are).
And this is my worry. That the market is so flooded with
super hero movies that they no longer become worth seeing. Seeing Spider-Man
was a treat. It wasn’t just the latest in a long line of hero movies coming out
that summer. The last big super hero movie to come out had been X-Men two years
prior. There was not a flood of other super hero movies to compare and contrast
to. Spider-Man could be judged completely on its own merits. And it had taken
years to develop and perfect to make a truly entertaining heroic film. Unfortunately
the success of Spider-Man is partly to blame for the flood of super hero movies
because after that film came out the next year saw four hero movies coming out.
And then more and more movies were rushed into production, many slapped
together just to cash in on the trend.
Another large problem with the excess of super hero films is
that there seems to be a false sense of geekdom among Hollywood. Suddenly every
producer and executive at every major studio claims to have been a lifelong
comic book fan. Fan events like conventions have been completely taken over by
Hollywood teasing its next big production. And the problem is that very few of
those involved in these productions seem to be true fans. They are just trying
to cash in on a trend.
The problem with trends is that always inevitably end. There
was once a time in Hollywood where nearly every studio was producing Westerns.
Then Horror films were the hot trend. While there are occasional attempts to
bring those trends back to the forefront, they still never manage to rise to
the popularity they once had. So too will it be with super heroes. And I’ll be
okay with that. Because every now and then there will be an attempt to make a
big super hero movie and then we’ll get a break from them, which is personally
what I would prefer.
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