Superhero Movies

white avenger

white avenger

white avenger
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rome, georgia
Unless you've been living under a rock the last decade or so, you've noticed that superheroes, in particular, Marvel superhero movies, have become one of the greatest money making genre since westerns in the '40's through the 60's. Do you like it, or love it, and do you think that the trend is going to last much longer, as in, beyond 2020?
 
I love it - clearly 😀

It'll last, because unless the Phase 3 roster of Marvel movies are all horrendous and lose the studio a load of money, they'll start planning Phase 4 from 2020 onwards very soon. They're currently planned up to 2019 and there's no reason for them to stop.

I do worry a little about market saturation. When something is successful, you start to repeat the formula ad inifitum. Other studios will follow suit, until the properties start losing money. One day the bubble will burst, but not anytime soon.
 
Not really a fan. I liked Nolan's Batmans and love all the old Superman movies but it's just not something that appeals to me as a genre. The Avengers movies in particular do zilch for me - I would have more fun staring at a blank screen.
 
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I mean, I like 'em when they're GOOD - like most of the MCU, and the Dark Knight trilogy, and some of the X-men films (and I haven't watched the old Spiderman films in YEARS, but I remember liking them too). 'Captain America: Civil War', for example, was one of the best films I've seen in the last few years, in ANY genre. And hell, in a lot of ways, the Buffyverse is a superhero universe like Marvel and DC, and we all love it, right?

I think it's not such a weird phenomenon. People always wanted stories about larger-than-life heroes, and they always got them - mythology, fairy-tales, westerns, film-noir, etc... Superhero movies are just the new version of the kind of stories that people always wanted. And why are they popular now? Because modern technology makes them easier to make well. And technology only gets better with time, so...

When they're bad, though.... Yeesh. 'Man of Steel' was PAINFUL to watch, and 'Suicide Squad' was ALL of the cringe, and don't even get me started on BvS... The 'Amazing Spiderman' films were terribly weak, too. I don't watch many bad films, though... I never watched any of the Fantastic Four films, or the last 'Sin City', and I didn't watch BvS in the cinema, etc... No one ever said you HAVE to watch these films, right?

Will the superhero trend continue? Well, it will continue for at least a few more good years, I think. At LEAST until 2020, IMO. I think it might weaken by 2025, but who knows? These films have been going strong since around 2000, and they don't show any sign of slowing down. Even a stinker like 'Suicide Squad' made tons of money, and as long as these films make money, they will get made.

I do wish that Zack Snyder will never direct another superhero film again, though. Him getting fired will give the genre another couple of years to exist.
 
I'm not a fan of the genre in particular but a couple of superhero movies I've really enjoyed, like The Dark Knight and The Winter Soldier. Although those movies felt like dark thrillers rather than standard superhero fare, so that's what drew me to them. I think it can be a great format to tell a story but I definitely think it's becoming a bit much.
I think the number of superhero movies caters to the people who go to the theatre without an idea of what they want to see. It'll usually be an easy watch, and even if the average viewer doesn't know who Dr Strange is, they'll get the action scenes, the CGI, and some overblown villian, like the last superhero movie they saw. I don't think the trend will stop any time soon considering the money they're still making.
 
Superhero movies will go on forever. They may not be the same "set" of movies eg the current MCU but you will have reboots and spinoffs and sequels like there is no tomorrow. These are characters that people have grown up with. Some of these characters have been going on nearly 80 years, that's at least 3 generations of people with an affinity for these characters. They're never going to stop making Batman movies but will reboot every few years.
 
I love the Marvel Cinematic Universe! I never read comics as a kid but I grew up watching the Tim Burton Batman movies and Power Rangers. And then I got into Buffy when I got older. I love the first two Toby Maguire Spider Man movies and I loved the XMen movies. But it's not just the movies. The superhero shows on TV are really good as well. I love The Flash and Supergirl, i haven't seen Daredevil yet but I hear it's great. So I don't think the genre is going to slow down just yet. I give it another 10 years. Cause DC is still trying to build up their movie universe.
Guy said:
I do wish that Zack Snyder will never direct another superhero film again, though. Him getting fired will give the genre another couple of years to exist.
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I'm not a fan of Zack Snyders style. I didn't like 300, I didn't like Watchmen, I didn't like Suckerpunch. Man of Steel was OK. The only parts of BvS I liked were Batman and Wonder Woman. I could have forgived a lot of the other problems if it hadn't been for Lex Luthor. I just thought Jesse Eisenberg did such a terrible job with the character and some of it was in the writing too. I agree though, get Synder out of the DC movies or DC needs to have more control over his movies and not let him do whatever he wants. Sounds like they tried to fix that with Justice League. So we'll see how that turns out.

Wonder Woman looks like it might be good, and I've not seen Suicide Squad yet, so I won't pre judge that.
 
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We have had 54 years of James Bond movies and although the average quality has dropped in the last decade, there is no sign of anyone giving up on them. Superhero movies are likely to go the same way but we can see a quality drop starting already. Still, they have a lot of fanatic followers who will forgive a stinkeroo of a movie because the next one has to be better, right? And there is only one James Bond. There are a lot of comic book superheroes.
 
I guess the difference with the Bond film is that there are certain things which the core audience expects from the films which by and large it has delievered over the years. At the sametime each Bond (good or bad) have been different and as time has gone on the series have envolved. So it has that balance of changing, but retaining just enough of the core features to keep the old fans happy. We a superhero film you don't always know what you're going to get.
 
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By the way...most awesome superhero EVER was Gogo Yubari. Yes, she died but still...BADASS! Completely adored her.
 
DeadlyDuo said:
(Gogo Yubari) wasn't exactly a superhero though, she just had some good quality martial arts training.
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The same thing could be said for Batman, the Phantom, Black Widow, and either Green Arrow or Hawkeye. And, as he was originally written, Captain America was a super soldier only in the fact that he was the epitome of what a perfect, though perfectly normal, man could be. All of those people, and others, are superior only to the extent of combat training and extreme, but perfectly normal, physical development. They were intentionally written that way so that younger readers would be able to identify with them. I'm not a fan of Gogo, and I wouldn't call her by any stretch a hero, but, as far as fighting skill goes, she's competent as any of the other characters who I mentioned.
 
I think that the current superhero movie era will run their course in a little while. However, I'm sure it'll come back around again. after a while...
 
I can't imagine superhero movies going anywhere. They have been pretty consistent for the last 40 plus years.
 
Mr. Pole said:
I can't imagine superhero movies going anywhere. They have been pretty consistent for the last 40 plus years.
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True, there were Superman movies, not to mention Saturday Matinee Serials of Captain Marvel, Batman, the Blackhawks, and others, back as far as the early '50's, but they never reached the level of popularity that they enjoy today until the CGI technology enabled the movies to have some really awesome special effects, beginning with the now quite elementary effect used to make Christopher Reeve actually appear to fly, rather than just hang from wires in front of a screen. Then, once Lucas really developed his techniques, it really got rolling.

Things have come a long way since Superman was flying across the little screen back in the 50's.

 
Fuffy Baith
Fuffy Baith
That's really cool!
white avenger said:
True, there were Superman movies, not to mention Saturday Matinee Serials of Captain Marvel, Batman, the Blackhawks, and others, back as far as the early '50's
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Yeah, I didn't mention those because they were not consistently produced. They go back to the 30's if you are not looking for a consistent release schedule.
 
Hollywood has always had a tendency to go through phases of what's considered 'niche'. In the 90s it was all about disaster movies (Independence Day, Twister, Dante's Peak, Volcano etc). The great thing about superheroes is, there's such a wealth of story out there in comic book form, going back in many cases for 50+ years. There's plenty of characters yet to be immortalised on-screen and unlike the aforementioned disasters, there's always a new way to tell the story. There's only so many times a man (occasionally a woman) can save the earth from catastrophe of natural or extra terrestrial proportions. 😉

Also, it appeals to human nature. We all want to be heroes, or indeed villains 😀
 
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Mr. Pole said:
Yeah, I didn't mention those because they were not consistently produced. They go back to the 30's if you are not looking for a consistent release schedule.
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It could be argued that they go even further back than that, if you include such larger than life characters as Tarzan and Zorro, and the Italian superhuman strong man Maciste, to name just a few who were depicted in silent movies.
 
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