By Taha Khambaty
With The Flash running headfirst into commercial and critical failure this summer and Marvel’s Secret Invasion becoming the studio’s lowest-rated superhero series, it’s tempting to declare (and indeed many have) that superhero fatigue has arrived.
With a slew of duds releasing across both TV and the big screen, even the previously untouchable Marvel Studios has had to roll back on some of its planned releases to give audiences more time to breathe. This is also compounded by an onslaught of bad superhero films on streaming such as The Samaritan or Thunder Force. There’s plenty of evidence for most to conclude that the previous domination of the superhero genre over the medium is finally over.
However, before the Scorsese film bros rejoice, let me make one thing clear: not only do I think superhero fatigue is not here, but it’s an oversimplified term that masks a larger problem with Hollywood right now.
Firstly, you don’t need to search far to find successful superhero films over past year or two. Spider-Man: No Way Home raked in a staggering $2 billion globally, The Batman offered one of the best takes on the Caped Crusader, whilst Across the Spider-Verse has been hailed as one of the finest animated films by audiences and critics alike. Even outside of the Marvel and DC realms, TMNT: Mutant Mayhem won praise, and TV series like The Boys remain surefire crowd-pleasers.
Therefore it would be an overstatement to say people are tired of superheroes. Yet a closer glimpse at any of these examples reveals what separates them from the rest; their distinct creative vision. They boast unique visual styles and voices that distinguish them from the pack. Whilst it’s hardly revolutionary to suggest that good films garner better reception, the point becomes more apparent when we stop classifying superhero movies as a distinct genre.
Avatar, the most commercially successful film ever, depicts a man from Earth fighting aliens in a body that enables superhuman feats, engaging in battles against robots in massive CGI spectacles. This may be the quintessential superhero film formula, you won’t hear anyone categorising Avatar as a superhero movie. Again it’s not a surprise that superhero films are essentially a sub-genre of action-adventure films infused with elements of science fiction or fantasy. However, when we judge them through this perspective, we begin to recognise the broader phenomenon of action-adventure fatigue that is undeniably taking hold.
It’s worth acknowledging that although action-adventure is a broad genre, I’m focusing more more on the generic singular hero family-friendly action-adventure films. Movies like Indiana Jones, Fast X (which is undeniably a superhero movie), Transformers: Rise of the Beast, 65, and countless others which often feature a franchise character going from one action sequence to another, in search of a macguffin or villain, interspaced with quippy dialogue. What was once a fresh and fun formula, most successfully used by Marvel, has now been copy and pasted so many times that it produces the same generic action-adventure outings that subsequently flounder at the box office.
The true issue lies in studios churning out soulless scripts with the misguided belief that good action sequences and CGI will guarantee box office success. Initially, audiences may show up out of trust, but the more these generic action-adventure films, including superhero entries, inundate the market, the more fatigue sets in. So, amid the talk of superhero fatigue, the larger genre slump often goes unnoticed, and so do the real supervillains: billionaire movie studio CEOs trying to milk every franchise dry.