# So why has this particular period of superhero movies been so profitable. Is anything different **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 14, 2019, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-why-has-this-particular-period-of-superhero-movies-been-so-profitable-is-anything-different/838635 "2019-08-14T02:20:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2019, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-why-has-this-particular-period-of-superhero-movies-been-so-profitable-is-anything-different/838635/41 "2019-08-14T19:21:46Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > … > Even people like Zack Snyder who can’t make great super-hero movies are now making good super-hero action scenes. I think a lot of the credit should also go to the Hong Kong action cinema revolution of the late 80s / early 90s. Even without CGI, fantastic kung-fu and gun-fu superhuman action scenes could now be credibly choreographed and performed in a fluid ‘realistic’ presentation instead of relying on old unrealistic Shaw Brothers style tropes (e.g. punch, pause, punch, pause, react, punch, pause). Cites like Yuen Woping or John Woo. The doors for Hollywood burst open when The Matrix repackaged this new style for the western market. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2019, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-why-has-this-particular-period-of-superhero-movies-been-so-profitable-is-anything-different/838635/42 "2019-08-14T19:33:25Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Surely, Spider-Man is at least as iconic as Captain America? > > But to say that the Marvel movies are successful because of A-list actors is to put the cart before the horse. Sure, Robert Downey Jr. and the three Chrises and Scarlett Johansson are A-list actors now. But at the time their first Marvel movies were made, very few people knew the Chrises, and Downey was regarded as a has-been, and Johansson was just showing up on people’s radars. They’re A-list because the Marvel movies were good, not the other way around. Or to look at the other side, while the DC movies aren’t doing as well overall, everyone agrees that the best performance in them is Gal Gadot, and nobody at all had ever heard of her before she started playing Wonder Woman. The very first MCU movie features one of the finest actors alive today, Jeff Bridges. The next one employs two more in Mickey Rourke and Sam Rockwell…yesss…I know they are horribly wasted, but the sentiment to get the best was there! Also I think ‘has-been’ is a teeny bit much. Downey had just made Zodiac after all. That film where he, Mysterio, Stryker and Banner unsuccessfully solve the Zodiac murders. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2019, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-why-has-this-particular-period-of-superhero-movies-been-so-profitable-is-anything-different/838635/43 "2019-08-14T19:41:58Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > Also I think ‘has-been’ is a teeny bit much. Downey had just made Zodiac after all. I agree that “has-been” isn’t exactly the right description of Downey in 2008, before _Iron Man_. He had earned a reputation as being unreliable, due to his history of substance abuse. Although he was apparently clean in the years leading up to the first Iron Man film, and was receiving some notice for his parts in movies like _Zodiac_ and _Kiss Kiss Bang Bang_, I think Downey was still seen as a poster child for wasted potential before he became Tony Stark. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2019, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-why-has-this-particular-period-of-superhero-movies-been-so-profitable-is-anything-different/838635/44 "2019-08-14T20:16:09Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > I agree that “has-been” isn’t exactly the right description of Downey in 2008, before _Iron Man_. He had earned a reputation as being unreliable, due to his history of substance abuse. Although he was apparently clean in the years leading up to the first Iron Man film, and was receiving some notice for his parts in movies like _Zodiac_ and _Kiss Kiss Bang Bang_, I think Downey was still seen as a poster child for wasted potential before he became Tony Stark. Ha - I remember my roommate at the time complaining about the casting of Downey. He wasn’t all that familiar with Stark’s character, and my roommate said something like, “why would they cast this brooding drug addict to be a superhero?”. Once I told him a little bit about Tony Stark, it suddenly made sense to him. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2019, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-why-has-this-particular-period-of-superhero-movies-been-so-profitable-is-anything-different/838635/45 "2019-08-14T20:27:36Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > Ha - I remember my roommate at the time complaining about the casting of Downey. He wasn’t all that familiar with Stark’s character, and my roommate said something like, “why would they cast this brooding drug addict to be a superhero?”. Once I told him a little bit about Tony Stark, it suddenly made sense to him. Exactly! When they announced that they’d cast Downey as Stark, I thought it was absolutely brilliant casting, _if_ he was able to stay sober and out of trouble long enough to finish filming. Which is, I think, part of why the MCU movies have done so well (and as has been already mentioned) – I think that they have done a tremendous job with casting the roles, and finding actors who have really inhabited the roles and made the characters their own. ---
**Author:** ![zimaane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2019, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-why-has-this-particular-period-of-superhero-movies-been-so-profitable-is-anything-different/838635/46 "2019-08-14T20:43:26Z")
> [@](#): > > Is it because the audience is made up of people in their 30s and 40s who read these comics as kids? 1 I don’t think anyone answered your question here directly. If I had to take a stab at it, I’d say no. First, the audience for SH films is all ages. Second, the increase in interest in SH films hasn’t been matched by an increase in the actual comic books, as near as I can tell. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2019, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-why-has-this-particular-period-of-superhero-movies-been-so-profitable-is-anything-different/838635/47 "2019-08-14T20:57:24Z")
I think a better question is, why did the execs back in the day figure out that superhero movies could be wildly successful? Superman (1978) was a huge hit, but no one thought to follow it up with a Batman or Wonder Woman movie. Instead they just kept making more Superman movies, each one doing worse than the one before it. Same thing with Batman (1989). Huge hit, but they didn’t bother to make a non-Batman movie until 1997 (Steel). ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2019, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-why-has-this-particular-period-of-superhero-movies-been-so-profitable-is-anything-different/838635/48 "2019-08-14T22:54:34Z")
> [@AlsoNamedBort](#): > > I think a better question is, why did the execs back in the day figure out that superhero movies could be wildly successful? Superman (1978) was a huge hit, but no one thought to follow it up with a Batman or Wonder Woman movie. Instead they just kept making more Superman movies, each one doing worse than the one before it. Same thing with Batman (1989). Huge hit, but they didn’t bother to make a non-Batman movie until 1997 (Steel). Superman was great in many ways, but it is obvious now that the studio had no idea what to do. They fired Dick Donner and brought in a totally incompetent director to replace him. Superman 2 slid by on Donner’s contributions(some of which were duplicated without him). However, the 3rd one was a total disaster due to the idea that it should be “funny”. The 4th one was sold-off and made by another company. What helped with the marvel movies is that they: - Made an excellent first movie. I re-watched Iron Man recently and forgot how good it is. (they…almost ruined Iron Man 2…yikes) - Planned out in advance having all the heroes meet up in Avengers - Hired Joss Whedon to make Avengers. A hugely important and correct decision. - Gradually rolled out new heroes after Avengers, including the amazing Guardians movie and a few other good ones as well. - they course corrected. Captain America 2 and 3, Thor 2 and 3, and Iron Man 3 all course correct errors with the previous movies. Yes, I like Thor 2 more than Thor 1. - struck gold by getting the Russo brothers who actually turned out to be brilliant directors in this area - casting, casting, casting. Almost every single hero is correct cast. I would not replace anyone except maybe Hawkeye and Falcon, who are played by “generic dudes” in my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Trancephalic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trancephalic/32/380_2.png) [@Trancephalic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trancephalic)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2019, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-why-has-this-particular-period-of-superhero-movies-been-so-profitable-is-anything-different/838635/49 "2019-08-15T01:45:12Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > - Made an excellent first movie. Incorrect, Iron Man was not the first MCU film. That distinction belongs to the second Incredible Hulk film (and even then that particular film vaguely implies the first one sorta maybe counts). Which figures, as Hulk was Marvel Studios biggest name they still had film rights for. No doubt the live action TV show played a major part in cementing Hulk in pop culture consciousness. People tend not to realize that pre-MCU, Iron Man was B-tier Marvel at best. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2019, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-why-has-this-particular-period-of-superhero-movies-been-so-profitable-is-anything-different/838635/50 "2019-08-15T02:19:07Z")
Trancephalic: > [@](#): > > Incorrect, Iron Man was not the first MCU film. That distinction belongs to the second Incredible Hulk film Iron Man: opened May 2, 2008 Incredible Hulk: opened June 15, 2008 sourceL IMDB ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2019, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-why-has-this-particular-period-of-superhero-movies-been-so-profitable-is-anything-different/838635/51 "2019-08-15T02:43:17Z")
> [@Trancephalic](#): > > People tend not to realize that pre-MCU, Iron Man was B-tier Marvel at best. Maybe the character had faded in the nineties. But he was certainly a major character during the late seventies and early eighties when you had Michelinie, Layton, and Romita doing his series. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2019, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-why-has-this-particular-period-of-superhero-movies-been-so-profitable-is-anything-different/838635/52 "2019-08-15T04:33:54Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > Better writing, **casting** , marketing. Effects are better and cheaper. And there’s better penetration into the international market, so the investment is less risky. Plus maybe a little bit of technology in general being more popular, and multiculturalism. > [@Ethilrist](#): > > Also, they entered into the MCU with a plan to make a pile of movies, and signed actors to multiple-movie contracts, so all the parts of the organization had a vested interest in making sure everything worked, from the writing to the **casting** , directing, special effects, continuity… That’s also why the LOTR movies worked out so well. They were really one, big, 12-hour movie. The Avengers saga is like one big 24-hour movie. > [@kenobi\_65](#): > > Which is, I think, part of why the MCU movies have done so well (and as has been already mentioned) – I think that they have done a tremendous job with \*\*casting \*\*the roles, and finding actors who have really inhabited the roles and made the characters their own. > [@Mahaloth](#): > > -\*\* casting, casting, casting\*\*. Almost every single hero is correct cast. …so I think its fair to add [Sarah Finn](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0278168/), [Casting Director who cast almost every actor in the MCU](https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/film/112842667/make-mine-marvel-how-one-woman-cast-a-universe) to the list of things that have made these movies such a success. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2019, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-why-has-this-particular-period-of-superhero-movies-been-so-profitable-is-anything-different/838635/53 "2019-08-15T07:54:46Z")
> [@AlsoNamedBort](#): > > I think a better question is, why did the execs back in the day figure out that superhero movies could be wildly successful? Superman (1978) was a huge hit, but no one thought to follow it up with a Batman or Wonder Woman movie. Instead they just kept making more Superman movies, each one doing worse than the one before it. Same thing with Batman (1989). Huge hit, but they didn’t bother to make a non-Batman movie until 1997 (Steel). I think part of the issues is that after the '78 Superman, the studio execs said, “Ok…that went well…let’s think about doing another. Anyone got any good story ideas? Oh, and we made a pile of cash off of it, but we can make even more if we slash the budget by a third to a half.” In the MCU, someone had a general idea of where the whole thing was heading from Day 1, or at least made sure that follow-on movies made sense to a greater overall narrative, and didn’t skimp on budgeting on anything. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2019, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-why-has-this-particular-period-of-superhero-movies-been-so-profitable-is-anything-different/838635/54 "2019-08-15T13:05:03Z")
I think that _Thor: The Dark World_ was probably the weakest of the MCU movies, but I’ll agree that they definitely learned lessons from the first one, and applied those lessons. In the first Thor movie, they saw that Hemsworth and Hiddleston had great chemistry together, and so for the second one, they put in lots of interaction between them, which worked great. I don’t think that it was enough to make the movie as a whole great, but that one part of it certainly worked very well. Similarly with the two Ant-Man movies. Plan A for _Ant-Man and the Wasp_ had to have been to base the movie on the interactions between the two title characters. But while they were both fine in their roles individually, they had absolutely no chemistry with each other. So what did they give us in _Ant-Man and the Wasp_? A whole lot of interaction between Lang and his daughter, and a whole lot between Hope and her father, both of which were great. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2019, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-why-has-this-particular-period-of-superhero-movies-been-so-profitable-is-anything-different/838635/55 "2019-08-15T18:42:20Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Surely, Spider-Man is at least as iconic as Captain America? In most of the world, as iconic and had a better image pre-MCU, not being linked to America rah-rah-ism. Once upon a time, I was in a Barcelona Comic Book Week which had seen several special releases from Marvel’s Spanish publisher (as usual), and these included a couple that Stan Lee was surprised weren’t working (one of them wasn’t even being bought by the biggest collectors, since we considered it directly and enormously offensive\*); he was also surprised that Captain America didn’t sell well at all (he was paired up with Thor, and people bought those books because of Simonson’s Thor; Cap by himself couldn’t have sold lollipops in front of a school). Watching the Spanish editors try to explain it in English with correct grammar rather than just pull their hair out in cussy Spanish was, ah, interesting. Lee finally got it but it took a while. Note that the MCU’s Cap is nowhere near as much of a political bore as the comic-book Cap was for decades. - Wolverine in the Spanish Civil War. “Directly and enormously offensive” is an eufemism. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2019, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-why-has-this-particular-period-of-superhero-movies-been-so-profitable-is-anything-different/838635/56 "2019-08-16T04:01:36Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > The characters behave like real people would. This made me nod, because it’s exactly what I said to Bob Trole back in the early sixties. He was wondering aloud why I liked Spider-Man, “cuz he’s just a kid, and he’s got problems…” "Exactly! Spider-Man is a _real_ person with _real problems!"_ As life turned out, the same rationale also works for why, fifty years later, I prefer Marvel movies to DC movies. And Spidey’s neuroses to Supe’s flatter affect. I gotta find Bob and tell him! ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2019, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-why-has-this-particular-period-of-superhero-movies-been-so-profitable-is-anything-different/838635/57 "2019-08-16T04:07:05Z")
> [@Trancephalic](#): > > Incorrect, Iron Man was not the first MCU film. That distinction belongs to the second Incredible Hulk film (and even then that particular film vaguely implies the first one sorta maybe counts). No way, Iron Man came out first. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2019, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-why-has-this-particular-period-of-superhero-movies-been-so-profitable-is-anything-different/838635/58 "2019-08-16T13:52:11Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > In most of the world, as iconic and had a better image pre-MCU, not being linked to America rah-rah-ism. Once upon a time, I was in a Barcelona Comic Book Week which had seen several special releases from Marvel’s Spanish publisher (as usual), and these included a couple that Stan Lee was surprised weren’t working (one of them wasn’t even being bought by the biggest collectors, since we considered it directly and enormously offensive\*); he was also surprised that Captain America didn’t sell well at all (he was paired up with Thor, and people bought those books because of Simonson’s Thor; Cap by himself couldn’t have sold lollipops in front of a school). Watching the Spanish editors try to explain it in English with correct grammar rather than just pull their hair out in cussy Spanish was, ah, interesting. Lee finally got it but it took a while. > > Note that the MCU’s Cap is nowhere near as much of a political bore as the comic-book Cap was for decades. > > - Wolverine in the Spanish Civil War. “Directly and enormously offensive” is an eufemism. Exactly. MCU Cap is my fave Avenger and set of movies. …comic-books? I think I’ve bought ONE Cap comic in my life and that was a tie-in. ---
**Author:** ![planetcory](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/planetcory/32/1032_2.png) [@planetcory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/planetcory)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2019, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-why-has-this-particular-period-of-superhero-movies-been-so-profitable-is-anything-different/838635/59 "2019-08-16T15:50:02Z")
> [@digs](#): > > This made me nod, because it’s exactly what I said to Bob Trole back in the early sixties. He was wondering aloud why I liked Spider-Man, “cuz he’s just a kid, and he’s got problems…” > "Exactly! Spider-Man is a _real_ person with _real problems!"_ > > As life turned out, the same rationale also works for why, fifty years later, I prefer Marvel movies to DC movies. See, I’d say the movies are the opposite. DC tried to go the ‘realer’ route and it didn’t resonate. Marvel movie characters act like characters. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2019, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-why-has-this-particular-period-of-superhero-movies-been-so-profitable-is-anything-different/838635/60 "2019-08-16T16:46:45Z")
DC _thought_ they were going the “realer” route, but they picked and chose only the parts of reality that suck. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-why-has-this-particular-period-of-superhero-movies-been-so-profitable-is-anything-different/838635.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-why-has-this-particular-period-of-superhero-movies-been-so-profitable-is-anything-different/838635.md?page=4)