Thoughts on the superhero movie bubble

[residentpyromaniac]

Because it's clearly a bubble. It kind of makes me wonder if this is what it felt like with Westerns back in the 80s or so. People are going to look back in a few decades and go, "Man, the 2010s sure loved their superheroes." (I figure 2010s is the best blanket guess here. Iron Man really kicked it all off, and that was released in 2008. Close enough.) At most, I hope it ends like the Western trend did in the 80s, by slowly petering off until there aren't enough being released in a given year to count as a trend anymore, and not like the last trend of superhero movies did, with Superman IV just about killing them for somewhere around 15 years.

I'm sure there's been longer and more interesting analyses of why superheroes are so popular these days. My best guess basically boils down to, people want relatively simple stories while living in a world where the news seems to bring a relentless barrage of misery and outrage, because that's what gets the clicks. Stories where Evil is one specific person who can get punched until they stop are probably appealing.

A more cynical part of me thinks it's also partly because it's much, much easier to market a movie with existing, long-established characters than it is to sell something completely new. A major studio could probably slam out a trailer for the most random D-Lister from DC or Marvel's roster, and within hours there would be a hundred articles along the lines of "What is Etrigan? All you need to know for the upcoming blockbuster!"

(A digression: I really, really doubt that an Etrigan movie is ever going to be made. But it would be pretty cool, if anyone could swing it.)

And sure, Marvel as a whole has had much more success with the movies in general, but I think that's largely because DC doesn't feel like it's trying as hard. They've got a solid, if more niche, source of income from adapting existing comic lines to straight to DVD/streaming animation and by all accounts they plan to keep doing that. It wouldn't surprise me if they weren't pushing the live-action films as hard because of that.

EDIT: I accidentally hit enter and published this before I finished my train of thought. Whoops.

Not that I had much further to go with this. My main thoughts were that as much as my nerd ass loves these superhero movies (I grew up basically learning to read on DC and Marvel's Silver Age comics, it was inevitable), I know this trend is most likely unsustainable in the long term. People will probably get tired of over-the-top comic book style absurdity after a while.

I kind of wonder what the next genre trend will be.

Comments

[hebethen]

Did we have An Trend in the time period between Death of Western and Rise of the Superhero?

[residentpyromaniac]

You know, I'm honestly not sure? I only existed from '93 onwards but as far as my memory serves, it feels a lot more like there was an assortment of little trends instead of One Big Noticeable Trend.

I distinctly remember a minor swarm of dance movies in the early 2000s though. I think that was a little trend - they came and went real fast.

New Trend Vote

[codex8]

I personally would really love to see futurist utopian fiction become the next trend in movies, but I know that's not very likely.

Re: New Trend Vote

[hebethen]

I thought about what kind of trend I would vote for, but then I wondered if it wasn't that anything that becomes a Hollywood trend is inevitably going to be Like That. Or do non-Like That trends simply not ping on our radars as trends, becoming accepted as norms of the medium!?

Re: New Trend Vote

[residentpyromaniac]

See, that just makes me want to look into trends that happen/have happened in the indie movie scene, just to see if it's something that doesn't ping as immediately as trends. Big-budget Hollywood trends tend to be easy, but I'm sure there's some general cultural shifts visible in indie stuff.

Of course, there's the tendency towards pretentiousness in indie films as a whole, but I suspect that's an inherent risk when you combine an industry that gears itself towards people with a lot of disposable income who are all working on their Passion Projects.

Re: New Trend Vote

[hebethen]

Ooh, that's a good point. Honestly, I have so little exposure to indie films -- especially short films -- which ​makes my hmming about Hollywood particularly hollow!

[zenolalia]

I'm not much of a media historian, but I imagine as the state of our real world social systems continues to deteriorate, we'll see a resurgence of punk themes, presumably with a new punk subgenre. Eventually, the (admittedly delightful) numbing and avoidance effect of superhero movies won't be sufficient escape anymore.

It's that, or we push even further into the escapism and see a surge in anodyne, toothless comedy.

As exhausting as living through a punk wave inevitably is, I'd take it over "anyone who has an opinion is deserving of mockery" south park crap again.

[residentpyromaniac]

I won't pretend I'm much of a media historian either - I may have been a film major, but I focused mostly on the production aspects - but I suspect that even if there is a surge in soft toothless comedies, it's probably not what's going to be remembered long-term.

Except possibly one or two exceptions. I'm kind of reminded of how The Wizard of Oz fell out - when it first came out it was Moderately Big Hollywood Popular, if you can call that a category, but it only really hit huge commercial success in the 50s when it got released to be played on television. A lot. So it's not really like it was what the late 30s/early 40s culture needed...

I think I derailed myself hard there. I'm kind of with you on preferring a punk wave over the "anyone with an opinion deserves mockery" comedies. Probably because I have a pretty high tolerance for punk-genre-specific bullshit but my taste in comedies tends to veer hard into the borderline dada.

Or at least ridiculous and tasteless bullshit happening with a straight face. Monty Python's Upperclass Twit of the Year skit remains one of my all-time favorites.