Screenwriting : Super Hero Movies by Anthony Murphy

I've heard two opinions: 1) Movie goers are burnt out on comic book superheroes. and 2) Movie goers are burnt out on badly-written comic book superheroes.

I haven't seen "The Flash," so I can't say if it was written badly or not, but I've seen some of the CG and it looks really bad.

Where's the evidence movie-goers are tired of superhero movies?

Could be just Warner/DC movies. They seem to be box office disappointments than Marvel produced movies

Anyways, The director of Flash got the job after making hit movies.

Most show biz ppl would've signed off on this movie.

Dan MaxXx https://time.com/6267569/sports-movies-2023/

Dan MaxXx https://www.yahoo.com/now/superheroes-finally-losing-grasp-moviegoers-14...

Dan MaxXx Are superhero movies losing popularity?

Superhero movies seem to have lost their momentum at the box office, with the last two entries from Marvel and DC facing audience apathy; superhero movies seem to be slipping from their pop culture pedestal.Mar 21, 2023

Dan MaxXx https://www.34st.com/article/2023/06/marvel-declining-popularity-the-fla....

Dan MaxXx https://www.npr.org/2023/05/05/1174390700/superhero-fatigue-does-marvel-...

I know I burned out on all the big tent pole, franchise movies a few years back.The same thing and only mildly different. As far as evidence it comes down to studio expectations. If a studio boldly predicts $XXX and opening weekend misses the mark then it's labeled a flop.

Dan MaxXx https://pro.morningconsult.com/articles/marvel-superhero-film-fatigue

Dan MaxXx https://qz.com/2099140/fans-are-getting-tired-of-superhero-movies-survey...

Dan MaxXx Is that enough evidence, Dan, or do you need more?

This is my take.

DC the characters for the most part have super powers. So you have to bring in something like Kryptonite or other device. Otherwise it is a boring one sided story with no threats to the protagonist.

Marvel has super heroes mostly. Even the X-men can be hurt and killed for the most part.

Back at the start of the superhero craze. The characters were flaw people. Iron and Nolan’s Batman for example.

As time has gone on, they have become nicer and more powerful. This makes them more boring.

Bring back flawed (at a moral level, some good egomaniacs) with real human weakness and you’ll see them come back.

I don’t think we have identified the correct cause. I think it is too easy to say it is a genre.

Anthony Murphy I agree with you for the most part. Much like the way Zombie films and television shows have gone into overkill on the genre and are clearly losing audience interest, Superheros appear to be headed the same way. Perhaps Amazon's "The Boys" could keep things going for a bit, but I doubt for much longer. Even new twists on the topic are met with a ::shrug:: of "been there, seen that".

Steve Hayes I think you are right, Steve. Every genre cycles, so the current superhero film cycle approaches lunation.

Craig D Griffiths I hear you, but genre cycles are real, so even if the anti-hero is reintroduced, the superhero genre approaches an end to its current cycle, IMO.

We are burnt out, but particularly because they are rushing them now and all the stories feel the same. If I have to watch another Multiverse I am done. This is why I am still into "The Boys and Invincible where the story telling is still good. Else where the stories are either terrible or generic.

I wouldn’t even go as far as anti-hero. I would just make them (the characters) real. These stories are heading towards “sameness”. I think this “sameness” comes from not having real characters and relying on scenario and situation. They are explaining a plot or event, not a story.

I think genre fade comes from people generating so much volume, that they fail on the story aspects.

This happens all the time. Look at the big high level genres, comedy doesn’t fade. There will be the “new new thing” that will suck up the oxygen for a small time. But comedy doesn’t fade.

The writing gets boring, which is sad.

Craig D Griffiths you hit the nail on the head. They are focusing on the situation driving the story instead of the characters. There was a super hero movie with Sylvester Stallone that I think is underrated where he is a garbage man hiding the fact that he used to be a super hero. There is a twist at the end that I love because it’s tied to the character’s reason for leaving his role as a super hero. I found the story unique among the super hero genre. It was a very simple character driven story. It got mixed reviews and I am guessing it’s due to the lack of flashy VFX and over powered super villains.

I certainly can't claim to speak for everyone, but I think a lot of people are getting the same kind of idea about story and character but I think it goes a little deeper than that. The last Marvel movie was Antman who is hardly even a secondary character in the grand scheme of things so they were never going to see the kind of numbers that a Thor, Ironman or Captain America could pull in. Most people shrugged it off because the entire movie was nothing more than trying to set up a future threat for upcoming Avengers movies so all you really need is the cliff notes.

Then you have the upcoming Captain Marvel movie which, if you haven't watched the Ms. Marvel show on Disney+ you might not fully understand what's going on there. I think saturation of the market plays a big part in it as well. And then they do things like the new Kraven The Hunter movie where they turn him into an anti-hero but any fan would know he was an outright villain in the comics. So twisting characters to try to make them into something they deem as "Crowd pleasing" is more of a downside.

And since The Flash is the topic of this to begin with, I think they really painted themselves into a corner with casting. Ezra Miller has become the kind of person that no one wants to support and if the studio was smart about it they would have taken the hit and reshot with someone else. I have yet to see the movie and the only reason I will once it's on streaming is for Keaton.

"The last Marvel movie was Antman who is hardly even a secondary character in the grand scheme of things so they were never going to see the kind of numbers that a Thor, Ironman or Captain America could pull in." I heard "The Flash" had the same issue at first, Nathan Smith. Maybe more marketing would help bring attention to secondary characters.

"And then they do things like the new Kraven The Hunter movie where they turn him into an anti-hero but any fan would know he was an outright villain in the comics." That's what I thought when I saw the trailer. I remember him being an outright villain. I'm not sure changing him to an anti-hero will work. I think it's gonna confuse audiences if they have him be an anti-hero in his movie, then a villain in the "Spider-Man" movies.

About Ezra Miller: I think Warner Brothers/DC should've taken the hit and reshot with someone else. It would've cost a lot of money, but I think Warner Brothers/DC would've made more money in the long run.

I think theaters are still recovering from COVID. The Flash is already On-Demand. I watched it from the comfort of my home, and had time to take a break from the 2 and a half hour run time. I thinking it's more of runtime fatigue than Superhero fatigue. Remember when movies used to be 90 min, and if they went over there were literally intermissions.

While Antman is not a front running marvel character, the first movie did surprisingly well and gained Antman fans. The sequel was not bad and left us on a great cliffhanger. The third installment, just was not good for many reasons. Plot and characterization was poor. I am an Antman fan only because of the first movie. He was amazing in Civil War and End Game. I was severely disappointed with the third Ant Man movie as a new Ant Man fan.

I think when Hollywood puts something out there people want to see, they'll go see it. When we look at this past weekend, with Barbie and Oppenheimer having the great opening weekend they had, or a movie like Sound of Freedom and how well it has been doing, we see if a movie taps into the interest of an audience, they'll go see it in the theater. And then when we look at a movie like The Flash... if a movie makes as much as $267M and it's losing money (at least presently), Hollywood needs to rethink how they're spending money on film production. I never got into the Comic Book movies for no other reason than it just isn't what I'm in to, but I understand that The Flash was a successful TV Show on the CW. If it can be successful on a TV Budget... does one need to spend $300M on a movie to make $267M? Could they have spent $50M on a The Flash film and made a profit?

Joe Eatherton I agree with all you said.

Let's revisit post a year from now when Deadpool 3 comes out and Superman Legacy is in production.

With all commentation taken, certainly matters for general considerations and contemplations!!

And crazy lead actors