Is the superhero cinema saturation point nigh?

[JBatmanFan05]

Is the superhero cinema saturation point nigh?

I hope we're near there. Because this train apparently has to stop to get better scripts and better more thoughtful quality movies.

[Osiris-Rex]

I liked WW quite a bit but it was never an Oscar worthy picture

Wonder Woman wasn't your typical Oscar bait movie anyway plus it came out way too early. Typically a studio releases an Oscar bait movie toward the end of the year.

[Red Walrus]

IMO It's happened, it just hasn't been recognized as such.

There is so much content now. For the longest time, any Superhero offering was 'must watch'. It no longer is.

This year I watched GoTG, WW, Spider-Man, JL and Thor. I watched Flash, Iron Fist and Defenders too.

I skipped Inhumans, Punisher, the X-shows, I left AoS, and continued to stay away from Arrow and LoT.

Of what I did watch, I was dissapointed in varying degrees with almost all of it. There is so much you can skip anything you want and still have lots to consume. And what you do watch is now much harder to find entertaining because you've seen so much.

That screams saturation point to me, even if some people feel saturation point is when nothing is consumed anymore .

[RikWriter]

A lot of people here seem to be forgetting the axiom that the plural of anecdote is not data.

[hartttt]

mass production were every comic film is now alike is the problem. the saturation point is high.

the 2000-2010 era was better to me and kept saturation at a low point

I hope we're near there. Because this train apparently has to stop to get better scripts and better more thoughtful quality movies.

could not have said it better, what you said described why films like X2. Spiderman 2, TDK worked in a way most comic films do not work today despite box office sucess. i feel a lot of thought and quality went into those movies I mentioned in the 2000s. now everything feels like a mass production that just comes out year in year out.

its not just the lack of better scripts or thoughtful quality films, even on the technical aspect of films like cinematography and art direction, everything just looks the same with a lack of creative thinking. because the truth is movies are like finger prints and no two finger prints are alike so why should any movie made by different directors be alike or the exact same thing? this is the reason the saturation point is high. everything is too alike now. You have seen one, you have seen them all.

[mrbrklyn]

I don't agree with the likes of Jodie Foster. I respect Jodie Foster a lot but sometimes intelligent people can make foolish statements. Even if people make artsy films they desire to make money. No one spends money to make films without expecting some money.

Its not that original films aren't being made. Its just that people aren't going to see it.

No they are not being made.

[mrbrklyn]

A lot of people here seem to be forgetting the axiom that the plural of anecdote is not data.

that is great. I will remember that.

[C_Miller]

IMO It's happened, it just hasn't been recognized as such.

There is so much content now. For the longest time, any Superhero offering was 'must watch'. It no longer is.

This year I watched GoTG, WW, Spider-Man, JL and Thor. I watched Flash, Iron Fist and Defenders too.

I skipped Inhumans, Punisher, the X-shows, I left AoS, and continued to stay away from Arrow and LoT.

Of what I did watch, I was dissapointed in varying degrees with almost all of it. There is so much you can skip anything you want and still have lots to consume. And what you do watch is now much harder to find entertaining because you've seen so much.

That screams saturation point to me, even if some people feel saturation point is when nothing is consumed anymore .

Movie wise, I actually think this was the strongest year for comic book films in a long time, maybe ever. Justice League was exactly what I expected, which is not an endorsement. I don't really care for the CW shows, so I'll give you that and I was bored by Iron Fist too. But Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, and Thor, were all enjoyable to me to certain degrees. Logan and Guardians made my Top 10 list, a feat rarely achieved by a superhero movie.

Still, I find myself being cautious with the next round. I'm not really anticipating Infinity War, but Black Panther has me really excited. So, for me, I think there is a small saturation point, where I really don't care about what's upcoming. There are only two comic book movies that I have down as must sees, not just for next year, but for all that have been announced. So, while I will probably enjoy them when they come out, the hype factor is gone.

[Powerboy]

No they are not being made.

As several people have pointed out, there are over 700 movies made per year of which, on the average, there are seven superhero movies at the most.

Here's a decent list.

https://www.the-numbers.com/market/2017/genres

There is no specific superhero category but the average is about 7 so let's just double it and call it 14 even though that's probably way more than there really were.

There were 250 dramas. Granted superhero movies counted in that category so let's say 236 dramas.

73 comedies. A few superhero movies listed that as one of their genres so let's say 70.

33 horror movies.

15 Romantic Comedies. That really brings comedies to about 85.

8 Westerns.

7 musicals.

7 superhero movies. 14 if we go with my exaggeration.

It's really a shame. I mean, dramas, comedies, horror, romance, westerns and musicals all reaching the saturation point like that. It's too bad that they're all going to fade away from overexposure.

The reality is that there is no overexposure of superhero movies. For crying out loud, there were as many westerns as there were superhero movies in 2017. So, that's another fallacy. The western hasn't faded away. New westerns are still available. It's just that relatively few people watch them anymore. There is no overexposure of superhero movies. They are about the lowest on the list in terms of the number made. It's just that people go to see them in droves compared to most of the others.

If they dropped it to two superhero movies a year and those two movies beat everything else at the box office, would that still be a saturation of superhero movies?

Again, the saturation/ overexposure argument is bull. They have the least amount of saturation of almost any genre. There are at least a hundred other movies for every superhero movie. It's just that people don't go to see the others nearly as much and wait to use their money when that superhero movie comes out. That sounds more like anticipation than saturation.

[AJBopp]

Since the comparison to Westerns keeps coming up, perhaps we should try to achieve common ground for what exactly constituted the Western heyday.

The number of Westerns made per year since 1950:

• 1950 - 3
• 1955 - 2
• 1960 - 1
• 1965 - 3
• 1966 - 1
  
• 1967 - 7
• 1968 - 5
• 1969 - 7
• 1970 - 7
• 1971 - 3
• 1975 - 3

Note that the single western released in 1966 was on Dec 31, so it really counts for 1967, bringing its total to 8.

So, a few of observations:

• The number of years that Westerns could possibly have enjoyed "over-saturation" is 4
• The number of movies per year that were Western never exceeded 8
• If we use X-Men as our starting point for the modern superhero era, the current trend has already lasted 4.5 times longer than the height of the Western
• As a percentage of the the total number of movies available to view, Westerns were a far larger percentage than superhero films are likely to ever be (because of their expense)

It doesn't seem to me that the Western is a good comparison point to superhero on any level. It's purely anecdotal in any event that people just got tired of watching them. John Wayne was getting older, Clint Eastwood wanted to do other work, and people like Warren Beatty just turned out bad Westerns.

If and when superhero movies diminish in popularity, it's going to be because of one and/or two things.

Studios stop making good superhero movies

People's tastes will change (the next generation is almost never attracted to the same fashions as the preceding one) and superhero creative teams will not know how to adjust to them.

It will almost certainly not happen because there are too many of them.

[DrNewGod]

Since the comparison to Westerns keeps coming up, perhaps we should try to achieve common ground for what exactly constituted the Western heyday.

The number of Westerns made per year since 1950:

• 1950 - 3
• 1955 - 2
• 1960 - 1
• 1965 - 3
• 1966 - 1
  
• 1967 - 7
• 1968 - 5
• 1969 - 7
• 1970 - 7
• 1971 - 3
• 1975 - 3

Note that the single western released in 1966 was on Dec 31, so it really counts for 1967, bringing its total to 8.

So, a few of observations:

• The number of years that Westerns could possibly have enjoyed "over-saturation" is 4
• The number of movies per year that were Western never exceeded 8
• If we use X-Men as our starting point for the modern superhero era, the current trend has already lasted 4.5 times longer than the height of the Western
• As a percentage of the the total number of movies available to view, Westerns were a far larger percentage than superhero films are likely to ever be (because of their expense)

It doesn't seem to me that the Western is a good comparison point to superhero on any level. It's purely anecdotal in any event that people just got tired of watching them. John Wayne was getting older, Clint Eastwood wanted to do other work, and people like Warren Beatty just turned out bad Westerns.

If and when superhero movies diminish in popularity, it's going to be because of one and/or two things.

Studios stop making good superhero movies

People's tastes will change (the next generation is almost never attracted to the same fashions as the preceding one) and superhero creative teams will not know how to adjust to them.

It will almost certainly not happen because there are too many of them.

That's an interesting analysis, and it's cool that you pulled down that data.

Were numbers available pre-1950? Seems like a bunch of B-Reel, Serials, and radio programs were westerns in the pre-TV days. Post-TV, seems like there were also a lot of small-screen cowboy offerings, and even radio was hanging on for a while.

Not intending to carp, just strikes me that if we try to achieve common ground to define saturation, we'd have to consider all the means by which the offering was getting at the audience. Just like today we'd have to factor in TV, Streaming, Games, and possibly websites.

[AndrewCrossett]

There may only be 7 superhero movies a year on average, but what percentage of the box office do they generate, and what percentage of the promotional and advertising activity do they represent? How many of those 700 movies account for 80% of box office, and how many of those movies are superhero movies?

What percentage of the box office did those 7 superhero movies generate? Probably more than all the art-house dramas and rom-coms combined.

Superhero movies are never going away, but the days when they dominate the movie landscape like they have over the past decade are going away eventually. Tastes change. It's been true since the beginning of mass media entertainment, and it's going to continue to be true.

When I was in my 20's I'd have laughed at you if you told me I'd live to see the day when rock was only the 4th or 5th most popular genre of pop music. But here we are.

[AJBopp]

That's an interesting analysis, and it's cool that you pulled down that data.

Were numbers available pre-1950? Seems like a bunch of B-Reel, Serials, and radio programs were westerns in the pre-TV days. Post-TV, seems like there were also a lot of small-screen cowboy offerings, and even radio was hanging on for a while.

Not intending to carp, just strikes me that if we try to achieve common ground to define saturation, we'd have to consider all the means by which the offering was getting at the audience. Just like today we'd have to factor in TV, Streaming, Games, and possibly websites.

I think if we are going to go with Saturday morning serials and b reels, then we also need to start talking about Roger Corman Fantastic Four. It's simply not apples to apples.

[DrNewGod]

I think if we are going to go with Saturday morning serials and b reels, then we also need to start talking about Roger Corman Fantastic Four. It's simply not apples to apples.

Fair point.

[Osiris-Rex]

Speaking of Westerns, new movie out "Hostiles" starring Christian Bale (Bruce Wayne/Batman)