The genre Tom Hanks called pointless: “We’ve been down that road”
Tom Hanks is great for many reasons, but one of his most impressive traits is versatility. Few, if any, other actors could believably portray a loveable history-maker in Forrest Gump, a narcissistic cowboy doll in Toy Story, a valiant army captain in Saving Private Ryan, and a conniving music manager in Elvis, let alone do it to the extent that ‘America’s Dad’ has pulled it off over the years.
At this point, listing the types of movies Hanks has never done would be quicker. He’s never done a proper horror, not since the 1980s effort He Knows You’re Alone, a bizarre slasher that was his first-ever film role. He directed and appeared in the musical drama That Thing You Do! but never did any actual singing. Most interestingly, however, he’s never done a big superhero movie, unlike about 80 per cent of his fellow big stars.
During an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, the Hollywood legend revealed that he’d never even been contacted by Marvel or DC to appear in one of their films. He admitted to being a fan of earlier hero flicks, back when technology was only just allowing filmmakers to create spectacular scenes.
“You can probably say Christopher Reeve’s Superman was the first one that came close because of the cutting edge of the technology to allow for wire removal,” he said. “We all believed [a man could fly] when we saw it. It was quite extraordinary.” Does Hanks feel that way about the current state of the genre? Not exactly.
“We are now enjoying the luxury of riches,” he said (via Variety). “And because you can make anything happen on screen now, we are being brought back to the concept of, ‘OK that’s true but what is the story?’”
Hanks also referred to movies from the early 2000s, like X-Men and Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man, as exaggerated versions of real-life emotions, creating characters that audiences could relate to. “God, I feel like an X-Men sometime,” he shared. “I am as confused as Spider-Man. I am as angry as Batman is. I love my country as much as Captain America. We’ve been down that road.” However, in the 20 years since modern superhero films really took off, Hanks believes the genre has lost its way. “Now we’re in an evolution and place where it’s: And the story is what? The theme is what? The point of this movie is what?”
Of course, Hanks is not the only person who has lost faith in comic book stories in recent years. Ever since the grand crescendo of Avengers: Endgame, neither side has been able to capture the magic of the Infinity Saga. Critical opinion on Marvel’s output has shifted dramatically since 2019, and while DC was never on that same level, their recent efforts, like The Flash and Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom, were absolutely slated—and let’s not even get started on Sony.
Being a superhero movie fan these days is a slog. As soon as Marvel’s Disney+ series became essential viewing to understand the wider story, keeping up with the studio felt more like a full-time job than a hobby. The prevalence of the multiverse across both companies doesn’t help, as viewers now have to keep track of who’s alive in one universe and evil in another and so on and so forth. The phenomenon has gotten too big to care about it and now faces the threat of collapsing under its own weight.
This is in stark contrast to Hanks’ best work. He is the master of making you care, regardless of whether he is playing the president of the United States or some guy who works in a post office. His best stories are small, character-driven pieces that connect directly to the hearts of their audience without an explosion or CGI monster in sight. With all that context, it’s easy to see why he’s so suspicious of the world of superheroes.
