Superhero movies have been the juggernauts of the movie industry for over fifteen years, thanks to the expansive universes of Marvel and DC. Now, however, this genre of moviemaking is undergoing a period of reckoning.
Hollywood’s recent history with superhero movies has signaled that these movies are losing their cultural capital. Marvel’s gluttony of lackluster content, which now includes numerous television shows on top of its already expansive movie franchise, has caused the studio to slip; it doesn’t seem to have the iron-grip hold on culture as much as it did before Avengers: Endgame (2019).
Meanwhile, the DC Extended Universe is undergoing a complete overhaul under co-heads James Gunn and Peter Safran. While the future of DC may be brighter, it results in an uncertain state of limbo for its current projects. It’s unclear how movies like The Flash (2023), Blue Beetle (2023), or Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom (2023) are even going to fit in the franchise’s future. The prevailing thought amongst fans of this content is: Does any of this stuff even matter in the long run?
The greatest casualty of this state of superhero confusion lies in the newly-released Blue Beetle. It’s entirely unclear if the film, which introduces audiences to Jaime Reyes (Xolo Maridueña) as the Blue Beetle, will have a place in DC’s future.
With superhero movies, audiences have been conditioned to understand that each of these standalone stories are never really standalone. They are each pieces of content, a single storyline within an ever-expanding universe of other storylines. Watching Blue Beetle, then, results in a sort of whiplash. It’s highly enjoyable, full of heart, and fun on its own, but how should a conditioned viewer connect it to an uncertain future? It’s a confusing conundrum that works against Blue Beetle — even though it’s not a fault of the film itself.
What’s equally disheartening is that Blue Beetle really is a good time. It’s a good superhero movie that isn’t doing anything outstandingly new but is nonetheless a satisfying, refreshingly earnest movie. However, its quality isn’t reflected at the box office.
Blue Beetle pulled in a modest $25 million at the box office for its opening weekend, marking it as the first movie to dethrone Barbie (2023) since it was released. Of course, $25 million is no small number, but $25 million for a superhero movie within DC that costs $104 million to produce surely isn’t a home run.
Blue Beetle isn’t the first superhero movie in recent history to experience lackluster box office numbers, though. The Flash ended its theatrical run as one of the biggest box-office bombs ever, and Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023) flopped with $133 million globally.
Meanwhile, Marvel is pulling in fine numbers despite severely underwhelming product quality. Movies like Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022), Thor: Love and Thunder (2022), or Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023) haven’t been box office flops, but they are all far from good films. And that’s not counting Marvel’s various TV shows. I mean, seriously, did anybody watch Secret Invasion (2023)?
Here lies the crux of this “superhero fatigue:” These movies (and shows) just haven’t been all that good. As someone who loved both Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023), I do not deny that superhero movies just aren’t great monikers of quality. This has been true for a while, but it seems the real evolution of superhero movie fatigue is with audience expectations.
Audiences want to see good movies. Who knew?
There’s a reason why Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 did so well at the box office. It was good! (And audiences and critics agree.) Unfortunately, it also felt like a last hurrah for these kinds of movies — and I’m not talking about the end of the Guardians trilogy or the departure of James Gunn. It felt like a last hurrah for a time when superhero movies were inventive and full of heart instead of fill-in-the-blanks Mad Lib movies concocted by a group of executives looking to cash in on audiences. Not only is that pattern bad for movie quality, but it also signals a profound disrespect to fans and audiences.
So, are superhero movies dying? Likely not; Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023) is one of the biggest hits of 2023. But superhero movies are undoubtedly undergoing a transition period. Audiences have adjusted to these movies and how they play out. They’ve seen dozens of these films. They want something new, something different.
Look at Barbie and Oppenheimer (2023), the two movies defining summer. It’s easy to understand why Barbie, a family-friendly comedy about one of the most popular toys of all time, has done well. Even then, it’s blown its projections out of the water thanks to good reviews and the never-seen-before cultural moment of Barbenheimer.
Oppenheimer, though, is a 3-hour long R-rated weighty drama mostly consisting of people talking to each other. It has made more money at the worldwide box office than The Flash and Shazam! Fury of the Gods combined. In fact, it’s not even close. Oppenheimer has made upwards of $315 million more than those two movies combined, according to numbers obtained from Box Office Mojo.
Why? There are many reasons, of course, but its adoration by critics and audiences alike has a large hand in its success. It’s new, it’s from an acclaimed director, and it’s interesting. Meanwhile, superhero movies are becoming has-beens.
The newest evolution in superhero moviemaking is reckoning with the fact that audiences won’t automatically show up to the movie theater in droves once a new movie drops. Personally, I have grown immensely tired of that tendency; I suspect others feel the same. Instead, studios and films have to give a reason for people to show up. What a novel idea!
Article Courtesy of Carson Burton
Feature image credit to Warner Bros. via Variety
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