So, superhero movies...
Like I said in a previous post, I'm not a huge superhero fan but I can get into them with the right mindset and do adore characters and have grown up with both DC and Marvel even if Marvel only had X-men and Spiderman for me to know with just a hint of the Incredible Hulk. As for DC, it's mainly the DCAU here and all the media from video games and movies so yeah I technically grew up as a DC girl and had remained that way with a mixture of Marvel. Like most people, I only read comics after the fact and it's due to recommendations because how else I can be spared the really bad writing?
MCU had been dying out since Endgame. While MCU and superhero movies as a whole are seen as popcorn flicks, it had been nasty since then, declaring it would go the way of disco or the Western.
While superhero movies haven’t always won awards even in the early and mid-2000s when it thrived just as much as musicals had the revival whereas musicals have sustained interest since MR and Chicago, the superhero movies aren’t as lucky.
Once upon a time, superhero films were event films. Now with the yearly releases of movies while TV just had a tad better even if it still has scathing reviews - just look at the Arrowverse and the Batman-adjacent TV shows like Gotham, Pennyworth, and Titans - it's not much better but still slightly better, just a slight since Secret Invasion did not have the greatest reception.
The difference is that the TV and the movies of the MCU are so interlinked just as much as the new Disney canon has the new EU of the books, comics, TV, and movies that are so easily sapping people of enthusiasm because it's made for money and love for the series and just how vastly badly written with how apolitical it was with only Andor being the best show since ROTS's politicalness.
It's just as bad as LMM being a part of Disney that his overexposure had led him to people making fun of him. Sure, there will be admirers, particularly from his ITH and Hamilton days but others don't have that rose-colored glasses because of the overexposure. They admit that he's still talented - TTB and some of his better songwriting on Encanto and Moana - but when having to be a part of almost every project basically, he came across as not writing his best - just look at Scuttlebutt. It’s better when he does his own projects at his own pace to let the creative juices flow rather than corporate Disney misreading his popularity and needing him on every project. Even Alan Menken didn’t have that since at least his creativity juices gave us Star-Spangled Man with a Plan and Galavant although his live-action Disney work doesn’t fail hard since we got the cushion of the Broadway musicals. LMM failed hard with Scuttlebutt.
I understand what Martin Scorsese is saying about superhero flicks. There are just so many factors and popularization with the superhero movies of today that are linked for better or worse with the deterioration of Western cinema and the audience's interactions with it. Please note it’s in Hollywood whereas everywhere else is doing business as usual. It’s linked but in no way it is the ultimate nail in the coffin.
It’s not to say the MCU is the ultimate deterioration of Western cinema because I think that’s too cruel to say. MCU popularized so many things and there are many flaws with the franchise but superhero films of today have suffered too many and are blamed for it when it’s the studios exploiting workers and other nuances to discuss rather than blame the wider public for consumption. Blaming MCU and the superhero genre for the deterioration of cinema just made people look like dicks than actually having nuanced conversations.
People even shocked at practical sets just show how much Disney and other major studios have been reliant on CGI and virtual production.
For the most part, anyway, remakes are a frenzy in the video game and in the anime industries. However, those have their own trajectories that aren’t linked with Hollywood but are nonetheless notable because of the heavy franchise nostalgia money-making.
The over-reliance on CGI with overworked underpaid CGI artists is doing quite awful. Cats show that well while the superhero flicks just showcased the unnecessary CGI which should be used carefully just as much as stylized fight scenes. It’s certainly not used carefully nowadays because, unlike Baz Lurhmann who used CGI in a way that is somehow more tasteful and age better as time went on, MCU and DCEU’s CGI aren’t aging as well. Deepfake movies certainly won’t age well even if the media in question is decent; I cannot rid the uncanniness and the dead eyes of a computer algorithm of dead people or of young people. They got the lookalike for young Luke, right, that isn't the little child Luke? Use a real actor than a computer algorithm. They basically asked for the deepfake after the Leia and Tarkin mess in Rogue One. Now, people are begging for the human face and recasting at this point.
The no-spoilers culture certainly impacted that for sure. However, unless you are living under a rock, spoilers are natural to the process. Cultural osmosis certainly shows that. However, it’s a double-edged sword too as people feel nothing and asked questions why should they care? I'm not here to talk about the no-spoilers culture.
Considering I was going through my usual interactions with media, I did notice the changes to how the audience interacts with the product, and let's not forget Twitter having normies exposed to the internet in the worst way and indulging in far worse behavior. Ever since Twitter was bought by Elon Musk, it's harder to access and use for one who doesn't even have a Twitter; I don't know why Reddit and other conglomerates want to follow in his footsteps.
Pre-MCU movies are looked at with nostalgia and better critiques. Still, because of the varied history, it’s looked at better while at the same time, Fantastic 4 and X-Men had been dealt a bad hand. Fans do want a fitting movie deserving of other good and great superhero movies.
Superhero movies have their ups and downs. There are lots of ways that it could go with a superhero experiencing a Hello Dolly or Blazing Saddles that was thought to kill off superhero movies except animation for decades.
It’s simply for now, MCU is the target of derision along with the DCEU. Remember movies such as animated movies are exempt from this.
The audience doesn’t like following the movie comic books style even if the movies are chronological. Comics have their own problem with the direct market, are not fiscally available, and are not easy to follow with any major crossovers to consider canon. There is a point for the movies to go comic books style for a while until only a saga at best is completed.
Asking the general audience to fill a niche at the end of the day is only a niche.
The MCU has a bad reputation for the lack of everyday people and heroes. The emotional through-line has also been fractured as seemingly after Endgame, Marvel seems to forget the ingredients to their success. It’s unfortunate that outside of a clique of friends, the Avengers aren’t a found family.
The behind-the-scenes is also a mess with the secrecy of the script and the poor treatment of the cast and crew leading to a worse product. Anthony Mackie isn’t having fun neither does the cast.
The over-saturation of superhero movies is also a factor in its decline. Every year, a DC or Marvel movie is released, and not for the better. Just as criticisms are lobbed at other franchises under Disney like Star Wars being sapped of its magic just by yearly releases of TV and movies as quantity is put over quality, it will make the general audience tired. Again, only after Endgame did the general audience feel that they can’t keep up anymore and that’s not including spoilers. The Flash 2023 does not help with the superhero movie's overall decline.
Quantity over quantity is just one of the many problems of superhero films and franchises as a whole.
There were spaces between Raimi and Webb's Spiderman and the Dark Knight Trilogy. Nobody was making any noise then because people were allowed to consume superhero movies with reasonable and varying levels of quality that aren't B-movies. The Fantastic 4 movies and X-Men movies that came out then definitely weren't dealt with the same vitriol post-Endgame DC and MCU movies had been dealt with.
MCU was the start of the franchising of Hollywood. See the previous post for that.
Superhero films won't exactly die out. People say it would go the way of disco or Westerns. Now the old Western classics are long gone because all the manifest destiny in them is no longer produced in newer Westerns. Yeah, westerns still exist but the true westerns no longer exist.
Right now with the franchises that are still going on with surprise hits then and there, there is no mid-budget outside of television.
Franchises are tentpoles right now just as the big Hollywood musicals used to be. The Hollywood musicals of old were killed due to roadshows and increasing realism. The musicals that popped up after it are outliers and more popcorn flicks until Chicago can show musicals are prestige hence all the hubris for the Oscars. I hesitate to call Moulin Rouge prestige as nobody expected it to even work or garner a sleeper hit; it wasn’t even made for the Oscar scene his future films were. I like MR but I know it’s not what the Oscars look for even when they were nominated in several categories as the sillier entry; the studio just did the FYC because it had legs. Chicago, while wasn’t campaigned that hard by Weinstein, was still the frontrunner even if it was on the periphery. After Chicago won, all bets are off. To the point of hubris that biopics have yet to reach. I don’t think Elvis pushed the level of audacity the way Les Mis and Cats did. Les Mis only slipped past that because it was just another musical that won awards. When the same director made another musical just for the awards, that’s audacious for the win-win situation with Universal. I wonder what kind of audacious FYC biopic crossed Cats’ level of infamy. While Baz Lurhmann does want to win an Oscar for himself, I don’t see him being that desperate to make another biopic just to win; his style has always garnered mixed responses but he sticks to his style in the muck of grayscale and darkness that it’s welcome. Who has the arrogance and hubris of Tom Hooper and Universal? I don't want to know the biopic equivalent when there is a Fred Astaire biopic coming up and Fred Astaire did not want a biopic!
On a fun side note, one musical Dr. Dolittle was responsible for killing tie-in merchandise altogether in loads of investment until a little ditty called Star Wars reinvigorated tie-in merchandise. Just look at Lindsay Ellis about that.
Superhero films aren't musicals exactly but it's just as good as a comparison with western films.
The old West movies and Hollywood musicals are dead. They aren't tentpoles they used to be or have the popularity they enjoyed in their heyday. Yeah, movie musicals and western movies still exist and thrive as niches or have a revival but nonetheless the old are long dead and can’t be revived in any form because these genres have to adapt to changing tastes and knowledge of history.
The musicals of today aren't made on a budget that is the tentpole franchises. Even the most Oscar-hungry of musicals from prestige directors don’t exactly have the big budget MCU has. They’re 50 million compared to the 220 million and that’s on what I look up and not adjusted for inflation. Even Cats with its 95 million can’t match up with an average superhero flick. That’s changing with Wicked, The Color Purple, and others coming soon but compared to a standard franchise, those budgets don’t mean much.
What would future superhero films look like? Outliers are the ones people are willing to go see. Just look at the Spiderverse franchise for example.
I still think with popular superheroes and original heroes that had no comic origins, the superhero genre might survive but not as the tentpoles. It would just be on the side.
Honestly, future superhero films would just stand alongside the modern Western films that we do have. They are there, just not as popular, but the true westerns are long dead because of the dreamy manifest destiny and the racism that were so prominent in the old west films that it really can exist as time moved on from Lindsay Ellis.
I'm talking about superhero films here.
There are going to be heroes that will survive the superhero film apocalypse like Spidey and Batman. They are simply too popular even in the dearth because merchandise sales regarding them are enough to put them as one of the highest-grossing franchises. Seriously, when they are popular even when movies about them weren't released, it says everything they constantly fought for the no. 1 superhero spot but well-regarded kings of said genre nonetheless over Superman who consistently remained behind them. Iron Man was only popular because of RDJ whereas no matter the actor portraying the Big 3 of the Superhero genre remains popular regardless. Even Henry Cavill and Zack Synder did not dent the popularity the way Star Wars had done with theirs even with the OTrio. Outside of ST stuff selling extremely poorly, the PT and OT are still selling and selling well enough to maintain their grasp as one of the biggest moneymakers as a top-grossing franchise.
I mean Brandon Routh can still portray Superman in the new Flash movie instead of the wrong act of CGI-ing dead actors. Brandon Routh was still portraying the same Supes from the same line of movies. I can't believe that nobody on the production team even thought of reshooting it with Brandon Routh.
Spiderverse is what I consider an outlier because not only it's Spiderman, animated, but also because people like it. Heck, the DC League of Superpets was well-received enough to get a franchise to milk! It's not LBM's level of success and acclaim but it's enough. Lego Batman Movie is beloved but had a better start off because of the Lego version previously introduced in the Lego Movies. Teen Titans Go to the Movies was received better than expected, given how much the show itself was hated.
Animated films are the outlier here as outside of TV animated films (see the DCAU and the DC animated movies catalog. Outside of X-men the series, the many Spiderman series, and What If, I can’t name a single Avengers cartoon or animated movie at all. Seriously, I know more of the DC animated movies than I do anything, Marvel).
I don't know why superhero animated films are exempt from their live-action counterpart. They seemed to do fine whereas the live-action just seemed sapped of energy. Even direct-to-video and TV movies are doing better than film. Debatable for the dabbling in the darker stuff including Killing Joke. Can I get a better successor to the DCAU? Animation has and needs a purpose to be made rather than having reshoots so that's a plus.
Superhero television, animated and live-action, are doing just fine. Invincible, Umbrella Academy, Harley Quinn, Peacemaker, and The Boys certainly show that.
Even Teen Titans Go while aimed at a very much younger audience is doing well albeit even with its overloaded schedule.
Seriously, My Adventures with Superman is what I remember from announcements and it didn’t spark anything about superhero television being bad unlike how almost every DC and Marvel live-action film sparked how superhero movies are bad. Probably because animation and television need time to develop whereas superhero movies are three to four years at this point barring development hell. I have heard no disagreement about race-bending at all outside of racists aside from fears of it being the worst kind of adult animation. Because adult animation has been lambasted for being immature even for kids' cartoons, that’s more of a concern considering the last IP degraded the characters so that nobody can see the characters they know and love though considering it was supposed to be on Cartoon Network at one point it’s a moot point. Also, it was the first Superman solo series since DCAU. And it had great reception.
Superhero animanga is doing just fine. MHA and T&B certainly show that. Tokusatsu-inspired Sentai and Kamen Rider are doing fine with their ups and downs much like the PreCure franchise.
Superhero comics… The direct market is still there, unfortunately. Superhero webtoons are doing just fine.
Superhero video games are doing fine. I’m discounting that MHA gacha game - which is doing fine - and Jump Force. Honestly, anytime MHA had a crossover for a game, it’s all good regardless of the quality of said game and event. I’m talking about Spiderman and Arkham series as that’s mainly how people remember those more so than the MHA games unless it’s a crossover or an event.
The other mediums are doing fine.
It's just the live-action movies are bearing the brunt of the superhero fatigue or downhill slide. It's the most talked about of all the mediums. It isn't the superhero genre dying out as a whole across mediums. It's just the live-action movies.
Whether or not you like MCU or the DCEU, they have to adapt to changing tastes that are disinclined since Endgame with hits like The Batman being successes then and there. Honestly, that is the way the superhero movies are going at this rate with The Batman showing that superhero movies can survive as a standalone or a set of movies, preferably well-written ones. Though at this point, well-written ones will be the survivors instead of mediocre ones or comically bad ones at the very least. Because we haven't yet reached Cats level of musical movie infamy, there have been stupid and bad ones of superhero movies but none as horrid as Cats. It's not B-movie level of bad like way before the MCU began.
The baby in the microwave and shitty CGI of past Supermen are definitely not up there for the awkward and poor time-crunch of CGI human cats and badly done music that is not played for the beat and harmony with selfish celebs and directors aiming for the top prize, a director who doesn't give a shit about CGI and how it was done and how music worked in musicals at all and to transition it in his pursuit to take it to the real world.
Yeah, DCEU showed that Batman can fail even with his brand name but the point was still DCEU showcased a Batman who was so unsympathetic to people who knew the character which is the strike against the movie at the outset. Regardless of what you say about Zack Synder, the way he understands comics is not what the comic telling what it is, just a certain darker 'deconstruction' without understanding shit of what goes in it. Even if he did understand, he still isn't the right fit because he saw the hero in a different setting than DCAU. I'm not hammering Zack Synder here, just his fanboys who seem to think he's a visionary of some kind for the DCEU when really all his work there was just disparate from the DC that people largely knew from the DCAU.
James Gunn heading the new DCCU is a glimmer of hope for a chronicled universe as well as other jobs he’s taking with MCU given GOTG Vol. 3’s success. Honestly, we shouldn’t rely on one man for saving the superhero movies when Batman was a success. If Blue Beetle's reception is anything to go by, the DC movies under James Gunn would do fine but we shouldn't rely on him.
Blue Beetle winning now shows that with heart and a good story, a live-action superhero movie can still win and strive alongside musicals just fine, just not as a tentpole it used to be.
Tentpole movies that aren't superhero movies but franchises are getting a big dent because of inflation and too many choices leading to people picking what's going to make their money's worth. I'm going to talk it about in another post but seriously, Blue Beetle is winning hearts.
The live-action superhero movies won't exactly die out. Hits will be made, just not on the level of money they used to have. Say just enough to show they care because movie musicals certainly show that even in the hands of directors who don’t necessarily understand the medium.
The MCU needs a wake-up call and needs time to rest and rethink instead of yearly releases as if the fear of attention going elsewhere. Better that than the backlash after almost each and every entry both in telly and movies. Merchandise sales will be fine. DCCU is finally getting the stories the characters deserved after so long since their last great shot.
What will die are tentpole superhero movies, the ones with the big bucks expecting big bucks. The whole CGI everything to the overworked and underpaid CGI artists. The virtual production though had taken to TV and commercials.
Maybe it's my hope for a freaking Robin that isn't dead or only be the successor at the very last second no matter how much foreshadowing there is or edgy or a mashup. Robin is needlessly blamed for kiddifying Batman when Batfam is so good... Is it that bad for me not to ask for a live-action Robin who deserves their stories told? That isn't Titans?
Apparently, James Gunn is introducing Damian Wayne, the fifth Robin decades after Dick Grayson in Burton’s Batman series. I honestly want to see the other Robins so please don’t disappoint me. Damian is a delicate character to write about because he can be extremely unlikable and unable to empathize or even sympathize with others in the wrong hands but in the best hands, he can be a complex character, especially with Jon Kent, Colin, and so many others. I want the other Robins fully realized and not Damian to be the first Robin - that title rightfully belongs to Dick and passed down to Jason, Tim, and Steph - but he’s the first Robin after so long on mainline movies so forgive my mixed feelings when I seriously just want the Batfam with everyone else there. Additionally, it was Tim Drake who have the longest Robin run ever not including New 52 who was the one who pulled Bruce out of his darkness and it was Dick who pulled Damian out of his darkness; the misinformation going around is annoying considering Tim’s long run was very good and extremely funny (problems aside) joined with the Young Justice’s reign of unsupervised teens who had international incidents because YJ 1998 is a trip. So yeah, James Gunn does what the original has because it’s not Bruce and Damian pulling each other out of the darkness.
I know a popular trope for Matt Reeves’ Battinson is to throw Robin at him. Many fans do hope to see a Robin since it makes sense with the themes and this interpretation of Batman.
Huh, since Matt Reeves and James Gunn are handling two different Batman in their respective series, I think people can handle with Lego Batman and all. If Robins are to be seen in future films, I just hope to see the title of Robin passed down to those I just mentioned while carving out their own identities. Though Matt Reeves is setting up a trilogy so I don’t think so but I just hope to see it, ya know?
All I just want are Robins with each Robin getting the story they deserve. Is it that hard that we only scratched the surface of Batman’s character on the mainstream whereas the niche comics, video games, and animation tackled that albeit with mashups. I can’t help but laugh that they kept combining Robins rather than adapting them properly knowing the popular fanbase for each consecutive Robin.
Honestly, Matt Reeves shows superhero movies can still be event films and not reduce an actor’s career to a stop as actors nowadays don’t want to use the easy way to stability for it also dented chances with roles they want to have. Hell, Battinson was the Batman I have really truly seen yet as Batman was unfortunately the face of masculinity just as Darth Vader was when Darth Vader was one of the most passive villains I had ever seen and Batman is a depressed barely past 25 guy when he started his vigilantism.
Honestly, given Joker and the eventual fate of men seeing another thing entirely reputation, it just seemed that Joker is best a stand-alone this time around fully - really I will not take any more of it given how much those guys see it and it’s a perfectly fine movie, not my favorite but it’s like Frozen all over again - as Batman Begins and Man of Steel were supposed to be standalone but when one was able to tell a complete story while the other ended in a dumpster fire of incoherence and bad storytelling where one can’t even like the hero.
I know that drama is there for a reason in the comics but can I just have drama that is well-written? I didn't care for TTG and why should I and why should I hate it with its different target audience and all? I know TT didn't have the ending it deserved but TTG didn't deserve the hate. It's the same thing with the PPG cartoon that in no way is a successor to the older series that made PPGZ look like a better successor and I like PPGZ. I don't hate the revived PPG and TTG but when compared to ATLA, AT, and SU, it's pretty bad with the Power Rangers which is pretty bad writing and morals without the better writing of its prior entries but at least doesn't have twerking. There is nothing wrong with writing for kids but talking down to kids is not going to get them entertained beyond fight scenes and toys. That's the main issue of just how it talks down and how the popular trends including twerking for kids are just awful. Even Miraculous Ladybug with its awful storytelling and refusal to advance the story is better than that but it's not by much. It's faint praise so that's just how awful ML is to PPG and TTG where at least the episodic nature is there but no overarching myth arc. ML seemed to have no arcs outside of character introductions that could be plot relevant but the myth arc is so poorly realized that I cry every time I see it.
Batman is the closest thing we could get to the community thing that Batman got which is welcoming. A Robin fits the theme so much and a Robin who deserves the best is everything.
Sorry about that tangent but I really want to see the Batfam, Superfam, Flashfam, Wonderfam, Arrowfam, and Spiderfam get the spotlight and writing they deserved to the mainstream audience for so long. Mayday Parker was enthusiastically embraced with open arms alongside Spider-Dad so there's hope. Jarro and Batcow need their live-action appearance! I want to fucking see Tim Drake in all his deserved glory instead of being adapted out and getting the damn relationships he deserves to have with a mainstream audience! A big disappointment with the DCAU later entries is that Tim was never introduced and made friends with the people best including Steph, Cassandra, Cassie, Bart, and especially Conner. I was so disappointed that we never saw Tim connect with Conner in the YJ cartoon. Listen, I like Terry but Godoka, could I have Tim, please?
Tim was in Arkham Knight but he was so badly designed that I wasn't as interested in him as I was when I was reading the recommended comics. At least people know Tim there even if he didn't have the role he needed to be the character people loved in the comics. Even then, he's not Tim Drake as he's more Dick Grayson just as DCAU had Tim Drake be basically Jason Todd even though we have fucking Nightwing and Red Hood in the games! Why do I bother when I just want my bisexual Robin?! Is it the Red Robin thing even though Red Robin didn't seem to mind and it's a fun joke to be named after a restaurant chain? Let me sob in despair because DCAU had ignored or worst composited Tim's character making Tim's character unrecognizable when all I just want is Tim and the rest of the Batfam including Duke in all their glory with their characters intact and their relationships that were talked about and shown in great extent in the original comics memorability that I just cry about it, okay? It was so bad that the Batfam webtoon made me happier than any other Batfam including Tim ever did in the DCAU, YJ cartoon, Titans show, and Arkham Knight games ever did. Gotham Knights the game made me so happy because we actually got the Bat family including Tim being his own Robin and his own character, not the mashup I have to deal with in the Arkham games! While lacking the unhinged and manipulative nature of Tim out with that moral ambiguity, Tim feels more Tim than his Arkham Knights counterpart; while he was two steps away from a mad scientist, he wasn’t as morally ambiguous as he is in the comics, just something wrong with him. I can’t stress this enough he’s more Gun Batman than Jason or Damian could be had it not been for character development on Damian’s part; there's a reason why he's more likely to be a supervillain of the Batfamily and dozens of supervillain aus in canon. There’s a reason Cass Cain is always chosen as the true successor more so than Dick or even Damian. Cass Cain in DCEU’s Birds of Prey was so bad I cried; outside of that, BOP is fine and it's feminist that feels more validating even if it isn't quite the best but it's not mediocre either. Why is getting popular characters from the comics so hard to get?! MCU Peter Parker goes against the values of Peter Parker that I cry to think about; I don’t hate MCU Peter and appreciate him but I just can’t get into him.
I think people are confusing tentpoles with individual superhero movies that will be doing just fine. Tentpole superhero movies will be the ones going to be gone while individual movies will do fine. Outside of some nominations and critical acclaim, don’t expect to see nothing less than popcorn flicks from the audience's point of view.
Maybe it would go the way of Hollywood musicals that had died out but remained as either outlier successes or cult classics without the budget they used to have but only just enough to do anything at all. Just look at modern musicals that had enough to pull it off even in the hands of the poorest of directors who failed to understand the musical medium. The tentpole musicals are dead and since Hello Dolly has a budget that is 100 million at best though it's been climbing with Wicked total budget aka both movies are comparable to a big-budget DCEU movie or a Disney remake musical. It's not insanely expensive on par with the tentpole superhero films but considering it's climbing, it's still unlikely they are to reach anywhere near them. I just don't see the studios willing to spend more than needed for musicals, no matter how they are reliably to bring in money. They're one of the few mid-budgets that are still released in theaters today so I take what I can get. I am not counting the Disney live-action remake musicals because they cost just as much as a tentpole superhero and as a franchise. We just had to compare the budget and how much they were willing to spend on other things like advertisements.
Even the Western genre didn't exactly die out. Yeah, the true Western oldies are long dead.
The Red Dead Redemption series is not like the old West movies at all just for a clue. I mean, Charles and the Wapiti people are shown as people rather than stereotypes. Sure, there's True Grit gaining prestige but not enough to say it saved the Western in any form. Blazing Saddles killed off the Western for good.
Moulin Rouge has an important legacy for reviving musicals that it can bring mega bucks. Chicago made sure that the musicals could win awards again after decades of nothing. Grease, Cinderella 1997, Little Shop of Horrors, and Rocky Horror Picture Show are cult hits or outlier successes but it's not enough to bring back the mega-bucks that old Hollywood musicals used to with just as much budget. Musicals after its death with Hello Dolly are seen as popcorn flicks that even with Chicago and all the prestige directors trying their hands on movie musicals to win awards, it's not even a big-budget tentpole the genre was in the past. Any possible depths are disregarded because popcorn flicks at the end of the day. Mamma Mia wasn't here to win any awards and it's fine. Les Mis was here to win awards to the point it's just stupid to watch Tom Hooper want more of it and Les Mis just failed as a whole to get across what was great about the musical in the first place. Dear Evan Hansen even with its topic matter does not help the case that movie musicals are popcorn flicks.
These genres still exist but their original forms are long dead and will never be revived.
One of these days, the tentpole superhero movies will be killed off by a combination of factors just like they did the old Hollywood musicals and westerns.
It's inevitable that this point the modern superhero movies will die out. Yeah, there will be successes then and there with the surprise hits but it won't be the same. The only exception of people liking superhero films are the animated ones as that remained consistent enough.
Superhero as a whole won't die out. In other mediums, it's thriving and people don't have that much of a backlash as opposed to the live-action movies.
Honestly, this feels kinder than the doom people posit that superhero movies will go the way of disco. That superhero movies are the downfall of cinema and audience interactions thereof.
