Part of me thinks so, for all the Iron man movies, you get a deluge of crap (The Green Lantern a prime example) I also think the Comic Book genre movies are also a cheap way for the film industry to invest in rather than risking money on creating other movies that could be a blockbuster. I also sometimes think that this craze has peaked with the Avengers movie, as did the Zombie Genre with World War Z (Which I know bombed)
So far we’ve had
Vampires then Zombies and now Comic Book movies, they’ve all over lapped each other but one has usually proceeded another.
If I’m wrong call me out, if not what is coming up to replace this?
Meh. So it’s a fad. Cowboy movies were once the hottest thing on the silver screen. Film Noir was once big.
It’s like saying, “There are too many romance novels in the library.” Maybe…but who’s making you read 'em?
Vote with your dollars. Find a movie you like and go and see it four times.
Complaints of this sort are appeals to outside forces to take precedence over the free market of ideas. I know you aren’t actually saying, “I want legislation to regulate the number and kind of movies there should be,” but, in essence, you’re saying, “My tastes are more significant and valid than the tastes of the theater-going public at large.”
And…yeah. Your tastes probably are better than the average tastes of all the people sitting in theaters. Mine are too. So what?
In the meantime, man, I’m gonna go see every superhero movie I can! I love the damn things! I’m voting with my dollars, you bet!
This is a HUGE driving factor. I could write a script about a superhero saving the world and sell it to a studio. Now, they could try inventing a new superhero, design it from scratch, and then spend part of the movie selling this new hero to the audience and explaining who he (or she) is, what their powers are, their origin, yadda yadda yadda, and hope that audiences will be willing to take a gamble on seeing something new and unfamiliar. OR, they can just adapt the script to work for an already well-established, familiar, and beloved character that already has an audience of fans ready and eager to plunk down hard-earned cash to see their old friend up on the big screen. It’s a no-brainer, and that’s why you’re going to see the fourteenth sequel of the thirtieth reboot of the tenth incarnation of Batman before you’ll ever see “The All-New Adventures of Captain Electron” or whatever.
It’s not a snob thing, as I said, for every Iron man you get a deluge of crap like for instance, the Green Lantern or the Rest in Peace Department. Aside from that however, I’m just curious as to whether this kind of film has plateaued, or is in decline, I mean, where can you go from an ensemble like the Avengers?
I think that a lot of the reason is that special effects tech has reached a point where they can be done in a fashion that does justice to the source. When a “second tier” character like Iron Man can carry a film, that’s the proof right there.
I also think that GL was unfairly maligned. Reynolds was dead on in his portrayal of Hal Jordan, but the villain sucked, so there went the movie. I might have been nice to have a second installment with the hinted-at Sinestro, but it’s not to be.
Personally, I don’t mind. I just didn’t watch Green Lantern or Fantastic Four. It works quite well. I think what’s being done with the Marvel Cinematic Universe is actually relatively ambitious and novel for Hollywood, and it sets a good precedent.
Having said that, I just saw Guardians of the Galaxy and really enjoyed it. Great characters, CGI that complimented without being the center piece, and a great and interesting story.
However, I wish Batman, Superman, Thor, Ironman, etc, would all get sent adrift on a cruise liner packed with h-bombs and a 10 second timer.
Again, are we talking about comic books, or about superheroes? There’s a lot more difference than you think, and it’s probable that some of the movies that you wish they would “get back to” were comic book movies. Just as a couple of examples off the top of my head, The Road to Perdition and From Hell were both comic book movies. Are you fatigued of movies like them?
I saw Guardians of the Galaxy last week, and I really enjoyed it. And one of my all-time favourite movies is 1978’s Superman. However…
In the late seventies/early-to-mid eighties, there was a whole slew of original genre movies being released by studios: Star Wars, Close Encounters, Raiders, Tron, The Dark Crystal, Alien, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, Gremlins, The Goonies, The Last Starfighter, etc.
What were the big genre films in the last 10 years? The only ones that weren’t sequels or adaptations were Avatar (a big one, admittedly), Inception, Gravity and a good chunk of the Pixar films. Just look at this list and it’s glaring how almost all recent blockbusters are either sequels, prequels, adaptations or reboots.
Hollywood has become increasingly fearful of untested concepts, and ever-ballooning budgets are no doubt partly to blame for this. It’s not just a fad in terms of genre–it’s a trend of ever-increasing reliance on known brands.
Marvel’s films are great fun, but I’d like to see more opportunities given for original fantasy and SF on the big screen.
The top ten movies of the year thus far run the gamut from the latest X-MEN flick to GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY to CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER, plus the AMAZING SPIDER-MAN sequel; 2013’s top ten ran the gamut from the latest THOR flick to MAN OF STEEL to the biggest live-action movie of the year, IRON MAN 3.
Stretch it out to the top twenty for both years and – what? EDGE OF TOMORROW more than doubled its budget, as did ROBOCOP, sure as THE WOLVERINE more than tripled its budget likewise, as did 300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE; any day now I’ll be able to add mention of TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES, but never mind that now: apart from comic-book fodder like TRANSFORMERS and GI JOE, what the heck else made those lists?
(Oh, right: THE LEGO MOVIE, with gags built around – quips delivered by Superman and Batman and Green Lantern and Wonder Woman.)
You’re wrong. The problem is not “too many comic book movies” but a more general desire to avoid risk by latching onto an existing work. It would be nice if moviemakers showed more desire to avoid risk by putting the effort in to make sure that the movie isn’t going to be crap, but they’ve apparently decided that making nothing but reboots, remakes, sequels, prequels and adaptations works better.
I’ve got nothing against a good adaptation, but it’s awful to see a sequel of a reboot of an adaptation like Amazing Spider-Man 2 do so well financially even though it is complete ass.
$500M is a bomb? WWZ didn’t do justice to the book, but if you forget about the book and enjoy the movie as a different story, it was a perfectly cromulent outing.
Sturgeon’s law: 90% of everything is crap. Superhero movies, science fiction, comedy, romance, everything.
Yeah, it’s probably cyclic. Eventually people will tire of them, then in another decade or two there may be another revival. Outside of the really basic themes like comedy, romance, action etc everything is either cyclic or sinks and vanishes permanently after it loses popularity.
As a long-term fan of the comics and the movies there can never be too many GOOD comic book/superhero movies. Or TV shows. Or graphic novels.
But, Sturgeon’s Law is law for a reason - you are going to get chaff with the wheat.
Likewise, we still have horror movies, rom-coms, and yes, even the occasional western. People are still doing Shakespeare 500 years later, and the occasional multi-thousand year old Bible story.
I’ve always thought there were too many superhero comics. And yet they keep churning them out, hundreds per year, with new ones being developed all the time. Lesson: As long as there’s a thirsty audience, they will exist.
The current burst is partly a recent newfound capability (via CGI), and partly nailing the formula.