Audience interest in superhero movies wanes, but the genre isn’t dead
This is an unpublished feature I wrote for a class in the spring of 2024.
I’ve loved superhero movies since 2011. That year, three movies premiered that were just drops in the growing bucket of the genre, but were monumental to my young self. I was enraptured by the complicated morals of “X-Men: First Class,” the unwavering virtue of “Captain America: The First Avenger” and the identity struggles of “Thor.” I began watching anything like it — from the other movies based on Marvel comics to the ones based on DC — and caught as many in theaters as possible.
“Avengers: Endgame,” the grand finale of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, is the genre’s most successful entry in terms of theater impact. Four years since its release, it still holds the record for the highest-earning opening weekend in box office history. Over 100 million people flocked to theaters, and more in the coming months, to learn the fates of the characters we had grown attached to in the decade since the MCU’s birth. Both times I watched it, the theater was packed with patrons and anticipation for the climax of what had become the titan franchise of the century. We gasped, laughed, cried — and yes, marveled — at what had been achieved.
But once this chapter of the MCU saga ended, instead of wanting more, many of the fans stepped away. While audiences were tidying up after the party, Marvel continued to linger in the doorway, hoping for an invitation to stay. After a string of panned television series and movies, Marvel managed to destroy much of the goodwill it had accumulated. Half of the newer movies financially and critically performed in the bottom third of Marvel’s repertoire. Not only were people uninterested in the future of the franchise — it became popular to hate what had been a mainstream success.
Fans and critics alike are turning superhero movies over in their hands, searching for an expiration date. For some, “Avengers: Endgame” is the marker for when things turned sour. A friend recently told me that Marvel should have shut its doors with that entry because there was simply nothing left to say.
Others never warmed up to the genre, or at least, the franchise that has the largest output for it. Renowned director Martin Scorsese once said in an interview that Marvel movies are more like theme parks than cinema. In this, Scorsese follows a long tradition of separating media into art for the elite and entertainment for the masses. The placing of superhero movies into the latter category is nothing new. Their source material, comic books, has existed in that space since its inception and genre movies tend to land in that pile as well.
This exclusion of superhero movies from artistic consideration creates a shorthand for saying that people who like this genre have bad taste. For instance, my friend — the same one from before — told an acquaintance that I like film but have weird opinions.
“She likes superhero movies,” my friend said, like it was akin to my favorite painting being a fifth-grader’s doodle.
While superhero movies have typically been considered lowbrow, their beloved status had saved them from most ridicule. Not anymore.
“There very clearly was a drop-off in quality,” Campbell Mah, the president of the Chapel Hill Film Society, said. “Even people who would still consider themselves fans have realized that. There’s more of a cynical attitude toward superhero films than there was five or 10 years ago.”
Now everyone from longtime haters to skeptical fans are lining up for their swing at the pinata, targeting not just singular movies that failed, but the entire genre. Their reward? Bragging rights that they foresaw the downfall of the biggest cinematic trend of this century.
Mah was one of the many people who watched “Avengers: Endgame” in theaters, as well as several other superhero films. He remembered these times as his fondest moviegoing experiences from adolescence, wrapped up in the excitement of participating in a community that spanned from his family to friends to strangers. Recent theater trips have not inspired the same response. Although there’s been bright spots like DC’s “The Batman,” Mah hasn’t been driven to keep up with Marvel’s latest entries after seeing 2022’s “Thor: Love and Thunder.”
“I thought it was terrible,” Mah said. “That was one of the worst Marvel movies I’ve seen. It felt like it was just trying to expand the novelty and freshness of the one before, which I had really liked. It felt like this fourth one didn’t do anything new.”
The problem that Mah has identified is an inherent issue within genres — how to replicate the success of what’s come before without being derivative. While this is a balancing act, its model remains enticing to any risk-averse Hollywood studio. Why stray from what works? Each genre has its recognizable archetypes, plot beats, visuals and tropes that satisfy viewers and develop a formula.
“There’s a reason why, if you ask ChatGPT to write a screenplay in a recognizable genre, it can nail it,” Rick Warner, director of film studies at UNC, said. “But no one wants to see the same things over again. That’s the thing about genres — they do have to repeat themselves, but there has to be variation too.”
Genre conventions exist because they work. The do-gooder and the reluctant hero and the stoic badass are compelling protagonists. The triumph over evil, power of love and desire to grow are themes that resonate. And on a superficial level, people like to laugh at quips and revel in explosions. Genres are born because consumers and producers identify what becomes popular and seek or create more of it. Then, once the demand is met, interest wanes.
The conventions that comfort audiences also have the power to bore if they aren’t presented with innovation and subversion. Warner said that while he finds some superhero films to be well-made, he’s seen others that seemed to be directed by a computer. They told the same story, despite having varying characters to shape the narratives. This repetition — of characters, plots, themes — gives genre movies a limited shelf-life in pop culture. Why devote time to watching the heroes punch their way to victory when you always knew they’d win?
For me and Emilie Patrick, we do it because the movies aren’t about the big battle, or even the path there.
Patrick, like me and Mah and many from our generation, saw Marvel movies in theaters throughout her childhood. She then became involved in the larger community, watching all the movies in chronological order and reading about easter eggs and fan theories. Nowadays, Patrick has less time to dedicate to this pursuit, but hasn’t strayed from watching new entries. The mounting criticisms against the genre — which she said can be fair — can’t tarnish the way it’s made her feel.
“I remember watching ‘Captain Marvel’ with my mom and crying, seeing a big superhero movie about a woman,” she said. “I didn’t get to grow up watching that as a 7-year-old, but I got to see the 7-year-olds in that theater watching a superhero who looks like them.”
I’ve cried at countless superhero movies, from the Oscar-winning “Black Panther” to the terrible “Thor: Love and Thunder” to the deceptively childish “The LEGO Batman Movie.” I’ve loved this genre for half of my life, through the flops and the stigma, because it moves me. While this genre is admittedly in need of reinvention, its strong foundation of empowering themes and characters has the means to weather this storm of discontent. And if the longevity of the comic books it’s based on is any indication, superhero movies will continue to move me and others for decades to come.
So don’t worry, Marvel. The party may be over, but you’re still on my guest list.