Is the superhero cinema saturation point nigh?

[Powerboy]

Based on the films listed on Box Office Mojo, there were 724 films that came out in 2017. Seven were superhero movies if you count Power Rangers. In 2016 there were 736 movies, and also seven superhero movies.
In 2015 there were 705 movies, three of which were superhero movies. You get the idea. Now look at the top box office. Of the top 10 movies in 2017, five were superhero movies, with Logan at 11. For 2016 there
were four in the top 10.



But its not like superhero movies were dead between Batman & Robin and Batman Begins. Between them there was Spawn, Steel, Blade, X-Men, Blade II, Spider-Man, Daredevil, X2: X-Men United, Hulk, Hellboy,
The Punisher, Spider-Man II, Catwoman, Blade: Trinity and Elektra.

This nicely makes the point. Jodie Foster and others have the saturation of smaller movies. In fact, superhero movies are outnumbered about a hundred to one. It's just that they tend to be more popular than most of the other movies.

We can talk about westerns and action movies and the superhero genre but they are all Action movies in a way. For a time, they were focused on a certain time and place, a mythical version of the Old West exemplified by John Wayne, Tom Mix, Gene Autry and Clint Eastwood among many other people. The westerns clearly had sub-genre shifts even within their genre from the singing cowboys to the Duke to the Spahgetti westerns to the more authentic westerns exemplified by "Unforgiven" though that was way after the genre had faded.

But the Western genre only faded in the sense that it dropped the specific time and place and instead became the Action movies of Arnold, Norris, Seagal, Diesal and so on as time passed.

The Action movie genre is still alive and yet it has also evolved into the Superhero action movie which is the most versatile of all of the manifestations of the action movie so far. I think we may eventually see fewer superhero movies per year but I don't think it's going to vanish anytime soon.

Also, I can see the first X-Men movie or, far better, the first Spider-Man movie in 2002, as the true glorious rebirth of the superhero genre.

[shades of eternity]

honest even if the era of superheroes end, they did the impossible and left a legacy.

we should all be so lucky.

[AndrewCrossett]

People get tired of everything sooner or later. It all depends on how long Marvel can keep up the quality. At some point key people will leave, less smart people will replace them, bad decisions will be made. Marvel will turn out a couple of high profile flops, the well-known and popular heroes of the early MCU movies will fall away as their actors retire from the roles, and will be replaced by less compelling characters. Some shiny new blockbuster trend will emerge, and superhero movies will fade away. Probably not completely, but the mania to open a new superhero movie every weekend will go away.

Someday superhero movies will go the way of westerns, or book musical films, or rock music... still there, just no longer dominant.

But that day is not today.

[Bergman]

People keep sayin' it's gonna happen but...

[BeastieRunner]

I'm sure we'll get supers movies like the occasional western when they do crash.

[Jon Clark]

I think it is a combination of things that are leading to a "saturation" point.

1) Repeating formulas: While not every superhero movie is interchangible and some are really unique there are a few "paint by number" plots that show up between the entire MCU (movies, TV, streaming) , the CW "Arrowverse", and DCEU that will eventually get old. And at that point the franchise films will get diminishing returns. It might not doom the whole idea of comic book movies but we will go from a dozen new projects to maybe two or three.

2)The next Big Thing: Right now Superhero films are big box office and everyone is trying to cash in. But suppose that between now and 2020 we had a string of other movies come along that did as well (hypothetically Gilligan's Isle/Green Acres/Mayberry RFD set of films in the top 10 box office each year). Odds are that WB puts a 1960's rural comedy reboot ahead of an Arrowverse show and Disney looks at old Wonderful World of Disney footage rather than Marvel Comics for ideas.

[LordMikel]

Based on the films listed on Box Office Mojo, there were 724 films that came out in 2017. Seven were superhero movies if you count Power Rangers. In 2016 there were 736 movies, and also seven superhero movies.
In 2015 there were 705 movies, three of which were superhero movies. You get the idea. Now look at the top box office. Of the top 10 movies in 2017, five were superhero movies, with Logan at 11. For 2016 there
were four in the top 10.

Not having done the research myself, but I think they include "Movies based on Comic books" in their opinion on super hero movies. Granted that might only change the number from 7 to 15 perhaps, so I agree entirely with your point.

I'm sure we'll get supers movies like the occasional western when they do crash.

I'm not sure how long Westerns were necessarily around, but assuming 20 years, I'm sure 5 years into that people were talking, "Westerns are coming to an end." And 50 years later we still have westerns being made. Perhaps only one or two a year, but they are still here. Eventually Superhero movies will be on the decline. I suspect the reboots will be the cause of the eventual decline. Although granted on the "spider-Man 2 Homecoming" thread people are demanding a full rehash of the original movies and not new things. But my opinion, I think Captain America: The first Avenger is a good movie and when Chris Evans doesn't want to do Captain America, I think they should replace the actor but not "restart" the franchise, but that is my opinion.

[choptop]

Naw it may slow down for a year or so we'll get maybe just 1 or 2 CBM but it's will start right back up again people have been saying it's a fad since 2006

[Somecrazyaussie]

I think it is a Yes/No answer. Cinema audiences still turn out in droves for each comic book related movie that hits theatres. So there is clearly still a market/demand for them. However, I do feel that they need to begin differentiating each one to prevent viewer fatigue. Marvel is kind of on the right path. Although not to the extent I feel they should be. Doctor Strange should have gone more mystical. The Thor films should have been a sweeping epic akin to LoTR. GOTG the comic book equivalent of Star Wars etc.

For me, though, I am starting to get a "same-ish" feel with Marvel Productions despite them trying different genres. Each film follows the same basic template. There always needs to be an abundance on humour (which has reached breaking point with me) and lacklustre villains that don't pose much of a threat. Even the Netflix offerings are similar - always need a hallway fight sequence, Clair Temple popping up etc.

This is why Captain America is my favourite trilogy. Each film is different- #1 is a period/war film, #2 a political thriller, #3 a superhero film with thriller elements.

[Osiris-Rex]

People get tired of everything sooner or later. It all depends on how long Marvel can keep up the quality. At some point key people will leave, less smart people will replace them, bad decisions will be made. Marvel will turn out a couple of high profile flops, the well-known and popular heroes of the early MCU movies will fall away as their actors retire from the roles, and will be replaced by less compelling characters. Some shiny new blockbuster trend will emerge, and superhero movies will fade away. Probably not completely, but the mania to open a new superhero movie every weekend will go away.

Someday superhero movies will go the way of westerns, or book musical films, or rock music... still there, just no longer dominant.

But that day is not today.

There have been superhero movies since the 1940s if you include the Green Hornet, Captain Marvel, Captain America, Batman and Superman serials. So it's not like they are something recent.
It's just DC movies had been the ones that dominated the box office until recently so no one noticed the Marvel flops back in the 1970s and 1980. Then Marvel got their act together and started
making good movies. Now it just seems there are more superhero movie because so many dominate the box office. We have movies from DC, Marvel, Sony, Fox, that get a lot of press, where
before there was just DC that got any publicity. There will probably always be superhero movies, maybe just one or two every few years that people notice, but they aren't going to go away.

Not having done the research myself, but I think they include "Movies based on Comic books" in their opinion on super hero movies. Granted that might only change the number from 7 to 15 perhaps, so I agree entirely with your point.

I was just counting movies I knew for a fact were superhero movies, not just movies based on a comic book. I excluded movies like Atomic Blonde or Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.

[Carabas]

Westerns also didn't just die out because people grew bored of them.

The entire genre was built on glorifying a period of history that people became increasingly aware of wasn't all that glorifiable. Leading to more realistic but less popular westerns.

[Tazirai]

Westerns also didn't just die out because people grew bored of them.

The entire genre was built on glorifying a period of history that people became increasingly aware of wasn't all that glorifiable. Leading to more realistic but less popular westerns.

This. I can watch a show like Laramie, because they actually tackled some hard subjects, adoption, womens rights, slavery, the costs of war, etc. They didn't do the typical Indians Bad, White people good thing. Even went out of it's way to promote change in many episodes. Blacks nor women were treated as lesser beings, and they didn't use a revolving cast of white men dressed in war paint like other Westerns did.

But a LOT of those older Westerns glorified a period of time Republicans want to go back to, that isn't in our system anymore.

Comic Book and Superhero films in General don't have that stain on them except for the treatment of blacks and asians in the beginning, which changed in the late 50's and 60's. A relatively short period of time of 10-15 years in the 30's and 40's.

[Soubhagya]

I double agree here. If studios get lazy or complacent, they could damage the brands that are most viable for films. Batman was practically rendered radioactive for a while.

That raises a point, there was a time when the Western resonated with audiences all around the world. How many forms of the story can be told before it gets stale?

Yes quality is important. Just as variety. Formulaic things are doing really well. But if everyone keeps doing the same thing and each film in a year are the same they would start loosing their edge.

I doubt Western films resonated around the world. Take two countries China and India for instance. They were not big there. (Or perhaps not released there). But MCU films do pretty well in these regions. They are not that big but there is a significant success which keeps growing. Both Thor Ragnarok and Spider-man: Homecoming earned a lot in India. They were not in the top ten but they saw a significant increase, more then anyone predicted. Spider-man was always popular in India. Thor was a surprise.

Though Westerns inspired films, which are basically western themes and ideas adapted to the respective cultures had seen successes. But among films made by the Hollywood studios itself, superhero genre is something which is working irrespective of the country. But then i said few genres, not just superhero genre.

New ideas is a question mark. Surely there is a lot of variety in the comic books themselves. You have a lot of older films too. I read an article a while ago which compared Logan to 'Children Of Men'. There are similarities. So, in my opinion there is a lot of variety available. Take even one superhero like Superman. In his history he had been a defender of the downtrodden in his first incarnation. Which turned to sci-fi storytelling in the 60s. Trying to be socially relevant in the 70s. The mythological style of storytelling changed to something resembling a soap opera in the 90s. I gave a very general idea but its just one example of what the genre can do. Keep a healthy mix of the conventional and the unconventional and the superhero genre can do even better.

In fact, i think there is space for a superhero film each month. Most wide release films nowadays, make most of their money within 3 to 4 weeks. After that the numbers are not significant enough to trouble a new release. Even the biggest and most well received films drop to numbers within 3-4 weeks, which under normal circumstances shall not trouble the next wide release film. The question is how many can they make each year.

So if we are speaking about the maximum films per year by a studio then its possible that we have reached saturation. (Though DC could do much better.) But more space is available.

[AJBopp]

Not having done the research myself, but I think they include "Movies based on Comic books" in their opinion on super hero movies. Granted that might only change the number from 7 to 15 perhaps, so I agree entirely with your point.

If they are including non-superhero comic book movies, then the saturation point seems even less likely to be on the horizon. Most of the audience is unaware that comic books produce anything other than superheroes or manga.

[AndrewCrossett]

There have been superhero movies since the 1940s if you include the Green Hornet, Captain Marvel, Captain America, Batman and Superman serials. So it's not like they are something recent.
It's just DC movies had been the ones that dominated the box office until recently so no one noticed the Marvel flops back in the 1970s and 1980. Then Marvel got their act together and started
making good movies. Now it just seems there are more superhero movie because so many dominate the box office. We have movies from DC, Marvel, Sony, Fox, that get a lot of press, where
before there was just DC that got any publicity. There will probably always be superhero movies, maybe just one or two every few years that people notice, but they aren't going to go away.

With the singular exception of the Christopher Reeve Superman, superhero movies were hamstrung for decades by two facts: 1) the source material was considered too juvenile for anything other than film serials and cartoons, and 2) the technology wasn't there to do a really good superhero movie. The Tim Burton Batman almost got the fires stoked, but crappy sequels killed it and made superhero movies box office poison for several years. The X-Men launched superhero movies as a viable genre, along with the Raimi Spider-Mans and the Nolan Batmans. But it wasn't until ten years ago with Iron Man that they started to become THE dominant action movie genre.

I did say that superhero movies are never going away entirely. I think they will eventually settle in to the status they had in the period between the first X-Men and Iron Man.

Without the popularity of the Marvel movies, the superhero genre would fall apart. Even if DC figures out how to start making consistently good movies, I don't see them ever reaching the cultural influence of the MCU. There's just too much stink of failure to overcome.

I think it will go just as I said in my first post... Marvel will inevitably stumble, the magic will fade, and superhero movies will come back to earth.

Westerns also didn't just die out because people grew bored of them.

The entire genre was built on glorifying a period of history that people became increasingly aware of wasn't all that glorifiable. Leading to more realistic but less popular westerns.

Westerns had been losing ground since the late 1950's but were really hurt by the end of the production code in 1967. Hollywood found other genres more appropriate for injecting sex into.