The Strange Case of Superhero Fatigue

Will superhero movies ever go away? Only time will tell.

With the recent successes of Venom, Aquaman, Captain Marvel, SHAZAM! and now Avengers: Endgame, there is no signs of “superhero fatigue” anytime soon. However, a year ago, film director James Cameron was quoted saying,

“I’m hoping we’ll start getting Avenger fatigue here pretty soon. Not that I don’t love the movies. It’s just, come on, guys, there are other stories to tell besides hyper-gonadal males without families doing death-defying things for two hours and wrecking cities in the process. It’s like, oy!”

Cameron loves these films but seems to think, there is no originality left. To him, these movies are nothing more than muscular male superheroes fighting to the death for two hours and wrecking cities in the process. There are original stories to be told in these superhero movies other that destroying the city. For instance, the three main Avengers, Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, and Thor Odinson, all have terrific character arcs over the course of these movies.

 ·         Steve Rogers is a man out of time and now must adjust to the modern world. He also must deal with HYDRA, now operating in the shadows within the same organization he has sworn to uphold the law for as Captain America. Steve then finds out his best friend Bucky, someone whom he was thought to be dead, is now an infamous assassin called the Winter Solider. Their strong friendship allows Bucky to be deprogrammed from his HYDRA mental conditioning.

 ·         Tony deals with life with humor he is are known for, despite hurting inside. He has lost his parents, seen friends die in-front of him, and was willing to sacrifice himself to stop an alien invasion. Tony also suffers from PTSD because of his experiences. This causes him to have nightmares, insomnia, and panic attacks. As someone who suffers from anxiety, there is a lot in Tony that I see in me, and I always smile knowing he is doing better, because he is better.

 ·         Time and time again, Thor believes himself to be unworthy of his title and of his hammer, Mjölnir. Thor witnesses his parents die, Mjölnir getting destroyed by his half-sister, his entire home world perishes along with his half-sister, half of his surviving Asgardians dying from the intergalactic conqueror Thanos, and finally, watching his brother dying from Thanos, showing that even the Trickster God can redeem himself.

If Cameron believes there is no originality left in Hollywood, then he is wrong. There’s still originality in films and in superhero movies. The MCU proves you can do a comic book film justice whilst showing the characters humanity. He does, however, brings up a valid point about the overconsumption of superhero films or more accurately, Disney producing three Marvel films a year. That is the Avenger fatigue, and Disney is no stranger of that fatigue. Disney is the pioneer of animated movies. They released them yearly and took a hit late 90s and early 2000s.

Their last traditionally animated films were 2004’s Home on The Range and 2009’s The Princess and The Frog. During that interim, the DTV market was ripe for their animated films. So, Disney focused on doing more live-action movies. And in 2003, they took a major gamble by releasing the first film in the Pirates of The Caribbean series. The first POTC was a major success for Disney; it paid off heavily for them. This would be their first cash cow live-action franchise that became bi-yearly released. However, if consider POTC as the prototype for the Avengers fatigue the way Cameron describes, you can understand his comments. In 2000, Marvel & 20th Century Fox released their first X-Men film, and it was a box office smash. This was unheard of because superhero movies were not the norm. Flash forward to 2008, Marvel & Paramount release the first Iron Man, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe was born. Each subsequent film was a hit. In May 2012, the first Avengers movie was released, and it was massive. It made well-over 1.5 billion dollars at the box office. Their highest box office hit, up to at that point. Iron Man 2 was their hugest hit before this film, making over 400 million dollars.

Since then, Marvel became a box office juggernaut through their MCU properties and through their 20th Century Fox related properties. Their X-Men franchise (including their Deadpool films) collectively made well over $5.7 billion in their box office. Marvel took a risk with X-Men and later, Iron Man. Over twenty years ago, Marvel was bankrupt and in order to keep themselves afloat, they sold off movie rights to various studios to financially get themselves out of the red. Warner Brothers was the only major film studio doing comic book films. Their Superman and Batman films are financially successful. Thirdly years since Batman’s release, studios still try and copy the Batman formula of the brooding anti-hero. Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy reimagines Batman in a more grounded reality, and it works. 2018’s Venom works because that is the nature of the character. There characters that make that idea work. And then there are character who shouldn’t follow that route.

In 2013, DC tried to do the Batman formula with Superman. It proved to be a big mistake for the character; Superman isn’t the dark and brooding character at all. He is conflicted but nevertheless, he remains someone who is pure at heart. This is most prominent in Man of Steel. Superman faces off against a well-known adversary, General Dru-Zod. In the battle between him and Zod, they destroy most of Metropolis in the ensuring fight. Superman ends up snapping Zod’s neck in a split-second choice. Superman must live with the choice of taking a life. In the films that followed, the DC films started to tone down its destruction and started to focus on the characters themselves rather than playing catch up with Marvel’s movie formula.

I, wholeheartedly, understand James Cameron is coming from. There are no original stories left to tell, but filmmakers are still making originality in films. But superhero fatigue is real because that there’s a lot going. Every film is connected. Recently, Star Wars is suffering the same predicament; films planned on being released yearly. There are films like Solo that were released during a hot release month and don’t gather enough attention and fail due to “superhero fatigue.” But that’s a story for another time.

 - Bryan M. Davis