The exact moment the superhero movie bubble burst, according to science
On May 2nd, 2008, the world changed forever, and I don’t just mean the world of movies.
This date saw the release of the superhero movie Iron Man in US cinemas, marking the formal launch of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the singularity that would come to dominate the pop culture landscape over the next decade.
The superhero renaissance had been building for a little while, thanks to the likes of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy and the first X-Men films. Christopher Nolan had helped relaunch DC with Batman Begins and would take things to a new level with The Dark Knight later the same year. The phenomenon reached its peak with Avengers: Endgame, the all-star conclusion to the MCU’s first big arc. With a total box office gross of over $2.7billion, it is the second-highest grossing movie of all time.
Unfortunately, every peak must come with a trough, and in the years since Endgame, Marvel and DC have continued to shovel out content to an audience that is finding itself increasingly fatigued with superheroes. Black Widow and Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings massively underwhelmed, and then came Eternals and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, widely regarded as two of the worst comic book films ever made.
More flops followed, leading to some writing Marvel off completely, and as for the DC side of things, they somehow found a new low. The DC Extended Universe (DCEU) had never hit the same highs as its main rival, but things got so bad that they were forced to abandon the entire project in 2023, and while the movie arm of the publisher has since been rebooted with James Gunn at the helm, that hasn’t exactly gotten off to the best start.
So, how did something so beloved and so financially secure become tainted seemingly overnight? Data journalist Daniel Parris attempted to answer this question on his Substack.
Parris attributes some of the downfall of superhero cinema to the pandemic; less than a year after Endgame, Marvel (and everyone else, for that matter) was forced to abandon all their plans and come up with something new on the fly. However, while the average box office gross of superhero movies started trending downwards in 2020, interest in the subject wouldn’t peak for another year or two.
This is due to Marvel’s decision to release a number of TV shows, such as WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Loki, which were among some of the first episodic adventures to premiere on Disney+. While this was good for brand exposure, it flooded the market, and fans now had to keep up with dozens of episodes of TV as well as every single movie, which proved too much for many.
According to Parris, 2023 is the year when superhero cinema reached the point of no return, with all metrics of box office, fan interest and number of movies released going down since that annus horribilis.
While there’s every chance that the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday could turn the genre’s fortunes around, the decline of superhero movies isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If fewer Marvel or DC movies means more people go to the pictures to watch a greater variety of movies, then I consider that a win.
