Are we really experiencing ‘superhero fatigue’?
When Martin Scorsese came out to state that superhero films were “not cinema” back in 2019, the iconic filmmaker was met with a flurry of outrage from legions of movie fans from across the world, as well as Marvel and DC directors Taika Waititi, James Gunn and Jon Favreau. When he uttered those words, superhero movies were arguably at their very peak, with the critically praised Joker being released shortly after Avengers: Endgame had redefined the modern blockbuster, but four years later, Scorsese’s comments seem to have permeated into the modern consciousness.
At one point, the height of Hollywood popularity, superhero movies have set the standards of how modern film franchises are planned, constructed and carried out, with every film studio planning their own universe on the overwhelming success of Marvel’s serialised model. Within this template, every film was a figurative episode that was imperative to watch in order to understand the wider story, making the all-star get-together of 2016’s Captain America: Civil War as essential as 2019’s standalone adventure of newcomer Captain Marvel.
The release of Avengers: Endgame in 2019 acted as something of a definitive bookend for this model, however, with several key characters making their departures from the franchise, ending a story that had been in development for 11 years. In trying to hand the baton over to the next set of heroes and create yet another ‘world-ending threat’, Marvel has found great difficulty drumming up enthusiasm from fans, and they’re not the only ones either, with DC still struggling to find popularity outside of Batman and Superman-related movies.
So, with Marvel and DC pumping out repetitive movies which rely on the majesty of long-deceased characters and storylines, is the long-prophesied concept of ‘superhero fatigue’ now finally setting in?
James Gunn certainly thinks the concept is alive and well, with the filmmaker and co-CEO of DC Studios telling Rolling Stone in a recent interview: “We love Superman. We love Batman. We love Iron Man. Because they’re these incredible characters that we have in our hearts. And if it becomes just a bunch of nonsense on-screen, it gets really boring”.
Continuing, he adds: “But I get fatigued by most spectacle films, by the grind of not having an emotionally grounded story. It doesn’t have anything to do with whether they’re superhero movies or not”.
Relating the concept of genre fatigue with a lack of novel characters and innovative storytelling, the director concludes: “If you don’t have a story at the base of it, just watching things bash each other, no matter how clever those bashing moments are, no matter how clever the designs and the VFX are, it just gets fatiguing, and I think that’s very, very real”.
This isn’t coming from a superhero-basher either, Gunn has been operating in the sphere of high-flying franchise filmmaking ever since the release of Guardians of the Galaxy in 2014, with the director now in charge of where the DC cinematic universe will head in the next decade or so. So, what exactly has changed since 2019, when Gunn passionately opposed Scorsese on his own Instagram account, stating: “Some superhero films are awful, some are beautiful… Superheroes are simply today’s gangsters/cowboys/outer space adventurers… not everyone will be able to appreciate them, even some geniuses. And that’s OK.”
The problem is that, unlike in 2019, when the ratio of good to bad superhero movies was weighted far more in favour of the former, these days, almost all Marvel and DC movies get a significant dunking from both fans and critics. From Marvel’s Black Widow and Thor: Love and Thunder to DC’s Black Adam and Shazam: Fury of the Gods, modern superhero films like character, heart and genuine authenticity, feeling more like the practical creation of a boardroom meeting rather than a lovingly made filmmaking venture.
To thrive in an overly-saturated market where the rhythm and beats of the genre have been painfully distilled by years of repetition, it’s essential that filmmakers try something new, such as what Todd Phillips did with Joker in 2019, making a human drama with a refreshing lack of CGI noise, or how Matt Reeves transformed the ‘Dark Knight’ with a brand new take in 2022’s Batman.
The likes of Marvel and DC honestly can’t say that they’ve been trying to innovate since their previous success with modern superhero movies relying on the narrative template created by the genre years ago. Thoughtful, intelligent superhero films will come in the form of brave steps forward for the genre and an admittance that things have indeed become stale and fatigued.
