Do we have too many superhero movies?

[Kor]

As with any genre, many superhero movies are cookie-cutter entertainment, while a few rise above that to a more special level. Sturgeon said 90% of everything is crap. I think that applies to all genres of entertainment. And sometimes you have to wade through that 90% to get to the gold-level 10%. I would say finding that 10% makes the whole endeavor worthwhile.

Now I think I'll go start a thread about "too many Transformers movies."

Kor

 

[Greg Cox]

I find them all pretty bland. They're just background noise now. When they inevitably start searching for more obscure superheroes in an attempt to breathe some life back into the genre, that's probably a sign they're winding down. .

I actually love the fact that we're finally venturing beyond the Big Brand Name Heroes and getting into some of the more esoteric characters and comics. Superman movies will be with us always, but I never thought I'd live to see The Vision or Red Tornado in live-action.

And, yes, I had damn well better get a decent Spectre movie before the current boom winds down. And, no, I'm not talking about the Bond villains.

 

[hux]

I'd never heard of Guardians of the Galaxy until the movie. Enjoyed it more than the standard Iron Man type stuff. Never heard of Dr Strange either so that might be interesting.

 

[Greg Cox]

I'd never heard of Guardians of the Galaxy until the movie. Enjoyed it more than the standard Iron Man type stuff. Never heard of Dr Strange either so that might be interesting.

I've been a Doctor Strange fan for as long as I can remember. (I have a distinct weakness for spooky, occult heroes.) My favorite Strange comics were the Steve Englehart/Frank Brunner/Gene Colan run back in the mid-seventies, but you can't go wrong with the original Lee/Ditko comics from the sixties.

"By the Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth!"

 

[Owain Taggart]

Well, sure, there are many more out them out there now, but it actually makes me appreciate it all that much more when something quieter comes along. It's a bit like musical trends when Rock'n'Roll was the thing in its heyday. Suddenly everyone was into rock, either listening or making it, and some of it was good, some of it not so good, but it didn't mean everything else was gone. And people survived into the next trend.

For me, the most interesting thing about the current trend were the Ironman movies. They brought something fresh to the genre, and they gambled on a lesser known character, and the movies turned out to be immensely popular.

 

[J.T.B.]

I don't know. Last time I checked, Hollywood had not stopped making art films, historical biopics, literary adaptations, etc. Heck, this summer alone we've gotten biopics of Hank Williams, Miles Davis, and Nina Simone, and at the height of summer blockbuster season no less. And I'm looking forward to the upcoming movie adaptation of Girl on a Train.

And even on the genre front, there's no shortage of straight science fiction films, horror flicks, espionage thrillers, romantic comedies, kid's animated flicks, and so on.

It's quite true the above-mentioned types of movies are still being made, but only on a certain level. The most important factor in whether or not they get made is not who's making it or how good it is, but how cheaply it can be done. Only certain types of movies get decent budgets. Not only superhero movies, for sure, but we know the list: Effects- and action-heavy spectacles, romantic and bawdy comedies, horror movies and kids films of a certain "franchise" lineage, and sequels of successful movies.

I Saw the Light is a great example. Aside from the weak script, it looks like a small-scale TV movie. Lots of interiors, closeups, small crowds shot to make them look bigger. Compare that with 1976's Bound for Glory about Woody Guthrie, which had extensive location shooting, whole blocks of a Depression-era town, miles of open road, farms and Hoovervilles, scenes shot atop moving trains and so on. I just can't imagine a musical biopic being given that kind of scale today.

An almost universally-acclaimed director, Paul Thomas Anderson, coming off a highly acclaimed and profitable movie, There Will Be Blood, took five years to follow it up with The Master and only got the deal when he secured some wealthy donor financing. Contrast that with Martin Scorsese coming off the commercial and critical success of Taxi Driver: Almost immediately he was given basically a blank check to make whatever he wanted. Which was a stylistic musical that flopped.

Super hero films are a genre, and it is impossible to determine if a genre is played out until after the fact. For decades Western films dominated American cinema.... then one day they didn't.

In sheer numbers a lot of Westerns were made in the '30s and '40s, but they were B-pictures, and by the mid '50s that business had moved to TV. I don't think there was ever a time when Westerns dominated A feature production, but I would be glad to be corrected if there are any figures on that.

 

[Greg Cox]

True, most westerns were B-movies and potboilers, but there were also more prestigious, ambitious films being made well into the fifties: Shane, High Noon, True Grit, pretty much anything from John Ford but notably films such as The Searchers or The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, most of Jimmy Stewart's gritty post-war westerns, Westward the Women, and, later, The Magnificent Seven, The Wild Bunch, How the West was Won, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and the rise of the spaghetti western . ...

These were A-list films with big name stars: John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Henry Fonda, Grace Kelly, Jimmy Stewart, Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Clint Eastwood, etc. Heck, even Marilyn Monroe made her obligatory western,The River of No Return.

And dare I mention Valley of the Gwangi?

 

[STEPhon IT]

There's never enough good superhero stories to tell, just tell them visually and don't ruin the characters.

 

[The Wormhole]

"too many Transformers movies."

That I'll agree with.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

OMG YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Guardians Of The Galaxy was and is my favourite of the Marvel movies. It's different. I want a sequel to that so badly. I'd love to see Peter visit Earth and his reaction to Earth 28 years after being abducted. Now that would be fun, and Rocket running around somewhere like NY. Now that's fun.

 

[Commander Richard]

^ Maybe Rocket could run into Jessica Jones or Daredevil.

 

[Greg Cox]

Or maybe the horrible Hellcow?

Hey, we know she's part of the MCU; they referenced her on AGENTS OF SHIELD.

("What the heck is a Hellcow?" Or something like that.)

 

[WebLurker]

Or maybe the horrible Hellcow?

Hey, we know she's part of the MCU; they referenced her on AGENTS OF SHIELD.

("What the heck is a Hellcow?" Or something like that.)

"What sort of hellcow produces carmine milk?" - Jemma Simmons (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 2, episode 5, "A Hen in the Wolf House")

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Yes!! Rocket Raccon and Jessica Jones

 

[Greg Cox]

"What sort of hellcow produces carmine milk?" - Jemma Simmons (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 2, episode 5, "A Hen in the Wolf House")

Right! That was the line.

And wasn't there also something about "What the heck is a Man-Thing?"

(I'm actually baffled as to why DC/Warner doesn't have a new SWAMP THING movie in works yet.)

 

[WebLurker]

Right! That was the line.

And wasn't there also something about "What the heck is a Man-Thing?"

(I'm actually baffled as to why DC/Warner doesn't have a new SWAMP THING movie in works yet.)

In "Nothing Personal," (season 1, episode 20), when talking to Pepper Potts over the phone about her Congressional hearings (in light of HYDRA's takeover of S.H.I.E.L.D. from Captain America: The Winter Soldier), Maria Hill sarcastically says one of the questions she was asked was: "Who or what is a Man-Thing?" Whether that means that there's a real Man-Thing living in the MCU or if Hill made it up on the spot as an example of the types of questions she was getting wasn't elaborated on.

Also, wasn't Ellen Brandt, one of the A.I.M. Extremis agents that attacked Tony Stark in Iron Man 3, married to Man-Thing in the comics or something?