The super hero film usual known as a summer time film that has a lot of effects and just there to entertain. This was before Christopher Nolan came along. In the year 2005 Nolan started his change of the genre with a real and dark Batman film not was successful with the critics and audiences alike. Directors were then needed to step up there films.
Then came the year 2008 in which a massive amount of four super hero films set to release. After each, people walked out liking each and every one (Iron Man Hulk Hellboy 2) , then Nolan's Dark Knight. The film became a classic as the film became known as a serous Oscar contender. What does this have to do with anything, well its just a brief history of the recent Super Hero flicks.
Well lets fast forward to about a month or two in advanced. The Summer of 2011 is about to begin with films such as Thor, X-Men First Class, Green Lantern, and Captin America. All of these films are slated to have huge box office runs with predicted grosses that are for the most part high. So far this summer thought, two of the four have been released and one other coming out today. So far, studios should be worried.
Thor started the summer and it kind of started a bit of a whimper only grossing 66 million dollars. It did tally 170 million dollars on a 150 million dollars but that total is much lower then other films such as Iron Man and some of the other more recent superhero films. Then X-Men First Class arrived and that is on pace to gross around 140 million on a 160 million dollar budget (also is the lowest grossing X-Men film).
This weekend we have The Green Lantern. Before the film was predicted to have a gross of 150 million but after the terrible reviews. It would be lucky to reach 120 million. Then later this summer Captain America a popular hero is only set to predict 140 million dollars.
Now its time to start to get to the point. As I showed earlier the Batman films and Iron Man films have made giant amounts of money and critical success. This may be all good but it may be contributing to the end of this superhero era. Why? Well it seems that there are many reasons for this I will go through a few.
1. People like there established superhero franchises. Look at Iron Man and The Dark Knight both got great reviews which lead to grosses past the 300 million dollar mark. So now audiences are knowing that they are going into films in which they know. This year everything is starting out fresh for the most part ( X-Men First Class is a prequel.)
2. Bad press surrounding the films. So far, each film this summer has had some bad press surrounding it. Critics and audiences were not fans of Thor's trailer in which it was alot of bad pop culture jokes. X-Men First Class was made in less then a year which is most likely a bad sign for a film. Green Lantern had a bad first trailer and bad reviews. Then last, Captin America had some problems with costume and CGI.
3. People and audiences seem to be getting sick of super hero films. Fast 5, Hangover 2, and Pirates of the Carribean 4 have all made more money then Thor and X-Men First Class. It seems that people would rather see a comedy or racing movie then a super hero film. Last year even the second Iron Man was out grossed by Alice and Wonderland and Toy Story 3.
4. The Batman and Iron Man films will never be replaced. No matter how much Marvel and DC try, once the Iron Man and Batman films series end (Batman next year Iron Man sooner then latter) both Marvel and DC will be stuck. After 2012 with the Avengers and The Dark Knight the two companies biggest films, they have to start from scratch. These film coming out this years failure slows down the development for there future.
Yes this may all be a theory but I think it will happen. After Batman and Robin bombed we did not see another superhero for four years and I think that the super hero genre is one flop away from a period of nothing. No, the genre will not die but it will not become as big as it is now. I hope I am wrong.
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