Do You Believe Comic Book Movie Fatigue Is Setting In?

[Mister Mets]

In some updates, Spider-Verse did well.
https://collider.com/spider-man-acro...e-400-million/

The Flash had a disappointing debut.
https://variety.com/2023/film/news/t...op-1235647927/

And word of mouth isn't great either.
https://fandomwire.com/we-blame-jame...ns-black-adam/

There are some unresolved questions.
Spider-Verse and the Lego Batman film do suggest a market for more ambitious animated films.
The reboot may hurt word of mouth for new DC films. We still don't know what the reception would be to Superman: Legacy.

[Stick Figure]

I think the there was a time when audiences were blown away by special effects. That’s not the case now so a movie has to have a really good story. Casually going to a movie isn’t something people do so it’s got to be really good.

[Mister Mets]

Critic Mark Harris suggested.

I keep reading takes about why The Flash flopped and I'm waiting for somebody to note that the character has been available for free in a nine-season, 184-episode series that ended three weeks ago. Movies and TV are not separate planets, as much as the movies wish they were.

Also, for hardcore "I need to see every chapter of the saga" fans, The Flash is what happens when you announce more than a year in advance that the current extended-universe thing (which is now a mixed selling point at best) is a big miss and nothing counts until the redo in '25.

I think that both Marvel and DC, though their levels of success are obv. different, are coming face to face with exhaustion with the "It's all one big story" aspect of the genre. For most moviegoers, it's become about characters (Spider-Man), not about chapters (Ant-Man).

DC's attempt to revitalize saga storytelling across TV & movies could work. But given Shazam and The Flash, it feels like the co. has reverted to an old norm that lasted decades: Batman is its own special thing, and everything else has to settle for various levels of not-Batman.

One more thing while I'm musing about this: Spider-Man: No Way Home was not a smash because everyone suddenly loves multiverse stories. It was a smash because it was fun, emotional, and incorporated 20 years of multi-generational fan love of the movies. That trick works once.

The CW is also winding down the superhero TV shows.

Chris Miller, co-writer and co-director of Across the Spider-Verse thinks audiences aren't bored with superhero movies, but they might be bored with derivative superhero films.

I don’t believe it’s superhero fatigue, I believe it’s “a movie that feels like a movie I’ve seen a dozen times before” fatigue. If you’re using the same story structure and the same style and the same tone and the same vibe as movies and shows that have come before, it doesn’t matter what genre it is. It’s going to be boring to people.

In some ways the Flash felt derivative. A big part of it is about reliving Zod's invasion in The Man of Steel. And it came out after the MCU and the Sony Spider-Verse films started tackling the multiverse (along with an arthouse hit that won Best Picture.)

When genres fell from favor (westerns in the 50s, musicals in the 60s) a big part of it was that it was getting stale. There may very well be revivals as directors find new things to say, the superhero equivalent of spaghetti westerns or grimmer musicals parodied in Schmicago.

[numberthirty]

...

The CW is also winding down the superhero TV shows.

...

That one is a little bit more complicated than that.

While I'd have to find an article, what I recall is more like CW is looking to get away from scripted television.

The shows from the "DC..." corner are just a victim of the same wave that took out the Supernatural spinoff.

[Noodle]

Not to mention since the network was sold they'd now have to pay a licensing fee for the DC shows.

[Zauriel]

The Flash had a disappointing debut.
https://variety.com/2023/film/news/t...op-1235647927/

And word of mouth isn't great either.
https://fandomwire.com/we-blame-jame...ns-black-adam/

.

The Flash's disappointing box office debut is telling us that the people are having fatigue and low sales speak loud volumes.

[wleakr]

That one is a little bit more complicated than that.

While I'd have to find an article, what I recall is more like CW is looking to get away from scripted television.

The shows from the "DC..." corner are just a victim of the same wave that took out the Supernatural spinoff.

The superhero shows are scripted. They are also expensive and not profitable pass the current Netflix deal. Nexstar/new-CW wants nothing to do with that beyond this Superman & Lois renewal, which was done reluctantly and with the concession to reduce a ton of costs to keep it going.

[wleakr]

Critic Mark Harris suggested.


The CW is also winding down the superhero TV shows.

Chris Miller, co-writer and co-director of Across the Spider-Verse thinks audiences aren't bored with superhero movies, but they might be bored with derivative superhero films.



In some ways the Flash felt derivative. A big part of it is about reliving Zod's invasion in The Man of Steel. And it came out after the MCU and the Sony Spider-Verse films started tackling the multiverse (along with an arthouse hit that won Best Picture.)

When genres fell from favor (westerns in the 50s, musicals in the 60s) a big part of it was that it was getting stale. There may very well be revivals as directors find new things to say, the superhero equivalent of spaghetti westerns or grimmer musicals parodied in Schmicago.

This really capture a lot of good commentary.

What can you really add to a Flash movie that hasn't been done in 9 years of the tv show? The answer: Batman.

If it wasn't known ahead of time that this movie would have Batman (multiple), the movie wouldn't even do as "well" as it's doing.

Eveything else shown in the movie was already done on tv, including an AA as Iris West. And for those upset there was no focus in the movie behind Nora's death, I didn't even feel anything since it was visited ad nauseam on tv!

[numberthirty]

The superhero shows are scripted. They are also expensive and not profitable pass the current Netflix deal. Nexstar/new-CW wants nothing to do with that beyond this Superman & Lois renewal, which was done reluctantly and with the concession to reduce a ton of costs to keep it going.

Well, yeah...

That said, the real story is that the network is looking to get away from scripted shows overall.

It's not like the Supernatural spinoff and Riverdale managed to scrape by while Gotham Knights was shown the door.

Even Walker looks like they are either looking to wrap it up or attempting to see if they can get them to throw their hands up and walk away.

[DanMad1977]

I asked multiple people (friends, acquaintance, colleagues etc) if they are going to see Flash in the cinema.

I found no one who wanted to see it. And I asked about 10 or more.

The explanations were quite interesting.

Ezra Miller is annoying as Flash
I have seen the TV show, that must be enough
DC copies No Way Home, with the multiverse stuff
The DC universe is getting a restart, so Flash is unimportant.

None of the asked persons were comic book reader, but everyone comic book movie fans, that have seen almost anything DC and Marvel puts out.

my own statistics never lie

[Agent Z]

"We've almost had as many animated films this year as superhero films.

Yet no one is talking about "Animated movie fatigue" when Elemental did poorly."

https://twitter.com/RDMacQ/status/16...D&refsrc=email

[Zauriel]

"We've almost had as many animated films this year as superhero films.

Yet no one is talking about "Animated movie fatigue" when Elemental did poorly."

https://twitter.com/RDMacQ/status/16...D&refsrc=email

What of the "Disney remake fatigue"? Not all live-action remakes of the Disney animated films were successful. Dumbo, for example.

[Material Flux]

"We've almost had as many animated films this year as superhero films.

Yet no one is talking about "Animated movie fatigue" when Elemental did poorly."

https://twitter.com/RDMacQ/status/16...D&refsrc=email

What of the "Disney remake fatigue"? Not all live-action remakes of the Disney animated films were successful. Dumbo, for example.

Everyone loves to come for the king.

We'll just have to tolerate this same argument repeating ad nauseum whenever a superhero film does poorly, even if there was one that sold gangbusters 2 weeks before.

[krazijoe]

There is no Fatigue. I guess we need to look at the box office receipts, adjusted for inflation, to see if maybe there is an overall decline. Sure there are a few break out hits that people want to see, but to get them out to new IP etc, is a hard sell now a days due to how Movie studios adjusted to the Pandemic. The studios can flip the switch but it's taking the audience a little bit longer to get out and about.

[Lightning Rider]

Even though I thought Flash was basically just fine, I couldn't help think that years ago it would be a movie everyone was talking about and wow'd by.