Film Are Hollywood making too many superhero films and when will they stop? | Never, apparently

Oldyella

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They will keep making them as long as they keep making money. Hopefully they keep going for a few more years yet as I generally enjoy most of them. How many Western movies did we get? And we still get them now just to a lesser extent.

I wish DC would act more like Marvel though, put a clear plan in place, and concentrate on 2 or at a push 3 movies a year. That list in the OP just seems like overkill. When that happens people will stop going as much.

Also interested in how Marvel go after Avengers 4. Everything they have done has built to this, how do they get people reinvested afterwards? Thanos is pretty much the biggest villain they have unless they get rights to F4 and Galactacus/Doom
 

The Firestarter

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They annoy me, yeah, I found them to be too much years ago and it got even worse.

Having said that, I don't have to watch them, thankfully. So I don't. It's annoying when you have to watch half a dozen of these trailers every time you go to a cinema but I've learnt to tune it out.
Yes, we don't watch them , however there is a distinct lack of original scripts these days.
 

decorativeed

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But because of these the studios are less likely to make original or daring IPs, they'd rather go with the superhero stuff because it has an existing fanbase. This is worrying for me.
I'm a big fan of Marvel's stuff, and loved what few superhero films there were available when I was a kid - the Christopher Reeve Superman movies mainly, then Tim Burton's Batman films a little later - so I'm pleased to finally see these characters on the big screen getting the stories brought to life in a way that wasn't possible back when I was growing up. I enjoy the visual spectacle, and there's no denying that they usually look incredible and the work that goes into the art direction is something I can appreciate on another level.

However, I am starting to look around and equate it to the global chain homogenisation of the high street. Going to your big multinational chain cinema, watching one in an ever-expanding selection of franchise films produced by a handful of huge corporations that are only getting bigger, in no small part due to the success of these kinds of films (Disney buying Fox is obviously a result of the success of their buy-out of Marvel), is not much different to buying your coffee from Starbucks and your lunch at McDonalds every day - businesses I avoid at all costs. It can't ultimately lead to things getting better for smaller studios and independent filmmakers and cinemas.
 

John_Jensen

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No interest myself. Find them bland, predictable & tedious.

Ed Sheeran in movie form.
 

Green_Red

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Aye but that only lasts for as long as audiences are interested in seeing superhero films. Surely mainstream audiences will tire of them at some point?
As long as people have kids therell be an auidence
 

dumbo

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For my tastes yes. They've become long, repetitive, boring, homogeneous, repetitive, interminable, bland, bland, bland, never-ending, time wasting, monotonous, dull, deadly dull, uninteresting, unexciting, unvaried, unvarying, lacking variety, mind-numbing, mindless, soul-destroying, soulless, humdrum, dreary black holes of nothing but static feedback.

They're processed fast food movies with the imagination of a McDonald's franchise. Which wouldn't be a problem if they didn't seem to take up so much space and industry resources. The big fear is not that their jackboots are stepping over the small indie arthouse stuff (which they probably are to a degree) but that they are actually gobbling up the space of other more traditional and original blockbuster ideas.

A little pious but
Jodie Foster said:
“Studios making bad content in order to appeal to the masses and shareholders is like fracking—you get the best return right now but you wreck the earth…. It’s ruining viewing habits of the American population and then ultimately the rest of the world.”
Superhero movies are not really the problem though, it's the studios and their negligence.
 

VorZakone

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For my tastes yes. They've become long, repetitive, boring, homogeneous, repetitive, interminable, bland, bland, bland, never-ending, time wasting, monotonous, dull, deadly dull, uninteresting, unexciting, unvaried, unvarying, lacking variety, mind-numbing, mindless, soul-destroying, soulless, humdrum, dreary black holes of nothing but static feedback.

They're processed fast food movies with the imagination of a McDonald's franchise. Which wouldn't be a problem if they didn't seem to take up so much space and industry resources. The big fear is not that their jackboots are stepping over the small indie arthouse stuff (which they probably are to a degree) but that they are actually gobbling up the space of other more traditional and original blockbuster ideas.

A little pious but


Superhero movies are not really the problem though, it's the studios and their negligence.
I have absolutely no idea if this is true but it wouldn't surprise me. These movies have huge budgets, don't they?
 

Oldyella

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I'm just glad there are studios like A24 around who are trying to push things.
For a relatively small company, they really have a great roll call of movies.

I think its Chris Evans who has said he does the big budget stuff alternatively with smaller passion projects. Just wish studios would do the same and vary their output, as much as I love the super hero stuff. Problem is they have all gotten so big as they buy each other out, it feels like they need to keep feeding the beast.
 

Archie Leach

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For my tastes yes. They've become long, repetitive, boring, homogeneous, repetitive, interminable, bland, bland, bland, never-ending, time wasting, monotonous, dull, deadly dull, uninteresting, unexciting, unvaried, unvarying, lacking variety, mind-numbing, mindless, soul-destroying, soulless, humdrum, dreary black holes of nothing but static feedback.

They're processed fast food movies with the imagination of a McDonald's franchise. Which wouldn't be a problem if they didn't seem to take up so much space and industry resources. The big fear is not that their jackboots are stepping over the small indie arthouse stuff (which they probably are to a degree) but that they are actually gobbling up the space of other more traditional and original blockbuster ideas.

A little pious but


Superhero movies are not really the problem though, it's the studios and their negligence.
All the discussion of the effect of superhero cinema on the Arthouse makes the presumption that American Arthouse is where it’s at. Not the case, only occasionally the case through the last hundred years.
 

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I'm ok with ignoring it for most part. I know that not a single dime of mine is going to them, so it's easier, you know?
 

MikeKing

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That is a lot of upcoming movies. Don't think it will stop really until people just get sick of them, or if some other gimmick emerges to replace the superhero stuff. I have to say tho I'm surprised at the lack of superhero themed porn at the moment, figured that would be the mainstream thing by now. Well, maybe the costumes are too expensive.
 

dumbo

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I have absolutely no idea if this is true but it wouldn't surprise me. These movies have huge budgets, don't they?
Yep, but right now they seem to be recouping that money. Available screens might be a bigger problem.

Marvel alone had 15 live-action Superhero releases in cinemas over the last 4 years.

Or maybe the cinema is simply dying, and not because of super heroes but other factors like larger screens in the home, streaming services etc. and these franchises are merely a way to extract the last of the money.
 

OnlyTwoDaSilvas

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Marvel's business model with their comics has always appeared to be "Hey, people liked that. Let's do it again, and again, and again" until it's completely drained. It's no surprise that they approaching the MCU with a similar vision. However, the quality of them as been quite high considering the amount of output, so it seems to be quite far from reaching a point where they are all out of ideas.

It is surprising that people do seem interested in stuff like Ant Man and Venom when they're not considered big characters. They also did incredibly well to make Guardians of the Galaxy one of the most widely appealing and marketable films in a long, long time, considering that the comics of the same name weren't particularly well liked. They've been incredibly successful at taking things that weren't a hit in print and made them a hit on screen.

I'm not a huge fan of them overall, I can sit through them and not hate them. They all look visually impressive, and they're generally pretty fun, but that's about it. They're just glammed up popcorn flicks with little to no rewatch value. I wouldn't go out of my way to watch one, unless it's Deadpool.
 

Ace of Spades

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I only watch a certain few of these movies every year, no way can I keep watching all of them as more and more of them keep getting churned out.
 

antihenry

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I fecking hate them. But they sell well so it won't stop for a long while I reckon.
Same here. I could never understand this fascination with the superhero stuff, especially Americans. I guess it has to do with growing up reading comics and such, but I just can't understand this obsession when it comes to adults. It just seems so lame to me.
 

iammemphis

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Well they are no worse than the Transformers films. The worst thing about some of these super hero films is they are nearly 3 hours long some of them. I mean ffs, 2.5 hours of it is the same scene over and over of one bad guy throwing a good guy in a tall building, smashing a city up and then the good guy eventually wins or escapes 20 minutes later. So boring.
 

afrocentricity

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Tbf this conversation has been done to death. They make what sells, most people go to the cinema to see spectacle (I know I do) so we get loads of the these types of movies. Used to be westerns, then slashers, then action movies (one man against the world and then action buddy movies), then CGI movies, now it's super hero movies. Don't blame the studios lack of imagination they go where the money is and always have. Blame the general public if you have to blame someone, because they are making sure these types of movies get made.

Like I said earlier, the big budget movies (that make loads of money) fund the smaller projects (that usually don't make much money). Without them we'd have less of the other. So this age old arguement about them taking up the industries finite resources is rubbish. It always has been.
 
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fcbforever

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Tbf this conversation has been done to death. They make what sells, most people go to the cinema to see spectacle (I know I do) so we get loads of the these types of movies. Used to be westerns, then slashers, then action movies (one man against the world and then action buddy movies), then CGI movies, now it's super hero movies. Don't blame the studios lack of imagination they go where the money is and always have. Blame the general public if you have to blame someone, because they are making sure these types of movies get made.

Like I said earlier, the big budget movies (that make loads of money) fund the smaller projects (that usually don't make much money). Without them good have less of the other. So this age old arguement about them taking up the industries finite resources is rubbish. It always has been.
Western is a good analogy, in the 60‘s this thread would have been called „Is Hollywood making to many westerns?“ Theres always something that dominates the casual cinema. 80‘s actions flicks, 90‘s disaster movies etc etc...
 

fallengt

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Can't talk to others but I will take a break after Avengers 4. Most Marvel's villains that I like are X-men related, Disney probably is not gonna their x-men's shared universe anytime soon so whatever.
For DCEU (Is it world of DC now?), can't find a single actor that has the right chemistry. Probably will skip most of their movies, depend on reviews.
 

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I personally stopped watching them after Age of Ultron (though I did enjoy Logan as it felt more of a one-off), I can do without endless universes and franchises.

However they're inevitably going to be made as they're making huge money, and if you enjoy them and are happy to part with cash to see them fair play to you.
 

Olly Gunnar Solskjær

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I don't think I've ever seen a single superhero film. I want to watch the 1989 Batman at some point, but that's about where my interest ends.
 

SwansonsTache

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I don't think I've ever seen a single superhero film. I want to watch the 1989 Batman at some point, but that's about where my interest ends.
Watch 'Darkman' by Sam Raimi (guy behind the Evil Dead movies).
 

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Why Hollywood still going strong since 20's may i ask? Didnt they bother you since there's new film everyday regardless of the genre? Your question is a bit daft i think.
 

BusbyMalone

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I would say yes. I've been forecasting the bottom to fall out of this genre for ages and it hasn't happened. Obviously there's very much still and appetite there as these films make an insane amount of money. Although, i think the Justice League movie was a little bit of a failure at the box office. Saying that, it still made something like $650 million, so it's all relative i suppose.

I said this in the Shazam trailer thread, but that IGN article were hey show all the upcoming DC movies is fecking absurd. Here it is: http://uk.ign.com/articles/2018/07/12/dc-extended-universe-every-upcoming-movie

I'm not a huge fan of them myself. I find most of them to be overly long, bloated and tedious. Batman vs Superman and Suicide Squad are up there with some of the worst movies i've ever seen. The fact that they had a running time of something like 6 hours each (felt like it anyway) just made it much, much worse. I will admit that i quite liked Infinity War, although the running time was slightly egregious.
 

Sparky Rhiwabon

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Paramount Pictures are actually the only major film studio still based in Hollywood and they no longer make superhero movies since Marvel was taken over by Disney.
 

JPRouve

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I don't think I've ever seen a single superhero film. I want to watch the 1989 Batman at some point, but that's about where my interest ends.
A man of good taste.:smirk:
 

RedSky

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I don't think I've ever seen a single superhero film. I want to watch the 1989 Batman at some point, but that's about where my interest ends.
If you want to watch a one off, i'd also watch Batman: The Dark Knight. You don't need to watch any of the other films and it's superb. I don't watch too many of the comic book films (I tend to skip the B/C/D list character films. Was also super impressed with Logan as well.

As for the genre... yes there are far too many but as long as it supports the industry and supplies them with money then I don't see a problem. There's enough film/tv content to watch nowadays that means you can skip the comic book stuff.
 

Un4givableB

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Yes they are and it will stop when people stop buying tickets.

I don't treat films as genre, lf a film gets great reviews from reviewers l trust, l might pay money to see it.
 

Cal?

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No and they shouldn't, Marvel anyway.

DC are a bit meh...
 

Raoul

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Same here. I could never understand this fascination with the superhero stuff, especially Americans. I guess it has to do with growing up reading comics and such, but I just can't understand this obsession when it comes to adults. It just seems so lame to me.
They're made for a variety of reasons. First, they make a hell of a lot of money so the profit motive is obvious - why would a studio greenlight 5 films in different genres when it can simply make the same amount of money with one high probability earner in the superhero subgenre.

Second, American kids who came up anytime before the mid 90s grew up with the comic books and Saturday morning cartoons so there is an audience and market already familiar with the various characters and storylines. Also, the executives who run the studios and green light these projects are from the same generations that came up reading the coming books, so they are also familiar with the entire story/character/plot. And finally, there's a generational appeal where you have everywhere from the 12-17, 18-24, 25-39, 40-48 demographics all interested.
 

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I don’t get the problem. Just watch other movies. It’s not like there is nothing else coming to the cinema. There’s plenty of great movies being released every year.