As a proportion of the market there’s definitely been quite a shift toward more superhero-style action/adventure movies compared to pretty much everything else. For example, it’s next to impossible to find a theater screening an original musical or a black comedy nowdays. For that matter it’s hard to find a movie of almost any genre that isn’t based on existing IP.
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There’s something weird with that site. It claims that there was only a single Western movie made in 2022 and that it grossed just $804:
https://www.the-numbers.com/market/2022/genre/Western
But obviously either way the major studios are not prioritizing Western movies with big budgets and star power like they are superhero movies.
There’s about a dozen superhero movies that came out in 2023 from Marvel, DC and other comic book properties. Out of about 500? think it’s a stretch to say they’re encroaching on the rest of the creativity of the field. Action adventure movies have been around for a while, I don’t think their existence or prevalence is due to the existence of Marvel.
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I’m talking major productions that get wide releases. How often does a Hollywood studio throw a couple hundred million at an original screenplay with no relation to previously established IP these days?
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I saw the movie Friday night. Although I enjoyed the first half quite a bit, the second half was utter crap.
SPOILERS BELOW…
The big baddie had a hammer just like the big baddie in Guardians of the Galaxy. And her minions were dressed just like the big baddie in Guardians of the Galaxy. And her “plan” was the same as President Skroob in Spaceballs: to steal the air and water from other planets by sucking them out.
The “unidentified” items that randomly appeared on the space station were obviously space cat eggs. It was telegraphed way too early, so it wasn’t surprising. And it was pretty lame that they had the space cats instantly trained to swallow humans, then cough them up back on earth. It didn’t make any sense.
Most annoying: Captain Marvel already had every super power that exists in the first movie. But now she can apparently re-ignite a dying star by flying into it. How? Why? What?
I didn’t enjoy the second half at all. It ruined the movie for me. And the pre-credit end scene was lame. I have no interest in watching Young Avengers. Blech.
Outside of special effects extravaganzas, there’s usually no reason to throw a few hundred million dollars at a movie.
The Fabelmans was an excellent movie. It barely broke even. If another hundred million had been thrown at it, it would be declared a financial ruin. It cost 40 million, made 45 million so far. Killers of the Flower Moon had DiCaprio and De Niro, with Scorsese. They are pretty much the biggest stars. It cost 200 million and has only made 137 million. Have there been articles that Westerns are over? That said, how much money a movie makes is not a great predictor of how great a movie it is.
Yes, many industry writers have noted the decline of Westerns as a form of popular entertainment over the decades. It’s not exacly a secret that they aren’t as big as they used to be.
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well, with a franchise 15 years old with many fans being those that grew up with it having characters closer in age makes sense.
Your grumpy old man card waits for you at the theater exit /s
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I get it…people from different political persuasions despise Disney for both taking a stance, and then backing off, but the agenda here is clear…superhero exhaustion… A surprising take on boing boings part? Shalle we discuss reality TV exhaustion?
Looking forward to seeing the Marvels with my daughters next Sunday.
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This is the reason that, unless a movie looks PHENOMENAL, I will wait for the DVD/Blu-Ray/Streaming release.
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Time will tell how successful to movie turns out, and maybe we will get a better idea of what happened. Maybe, just maybe, it really is superhero fatigue so we can go back to complaining about literally any other type of movie again. That would be great.
What the LAST SIX GODDAMN MONTHS of commentary about The Marvels has been, without anyone having seen it:
What the commentary is now that it’s been out for all of a couple of days:
It’s only made millions of dollars in its first weekend! We were right all along, and we didn’t even need to see it! In fact, I still haven’t seen it, because I don’t need to, all I need to know is that no-one has seen it (except for all people who made it the number one movie on the weekend, so no-one who matters has seen it), because I told them not to because it stinks, and I know it stinks because all the people I’ve been telling for six months that it stinks haven’t seen it! My logic is impeccable, and anyone who might have been looking forward to it are stupid and wrong because it stinks!
Now shut up and enjoy the seventy-ninth Bond movie, the sixty-fourth Mission Impossible movie, the forty-seventh Fast and the fucking Furious movie, and this three-hour long ouvre by some auteur which I don’t know what it’s about but it must be good because most of it’s in black and white and there’s some very artistic full frontal nudity which I’m pretty sure says something about the human condition or something.
With all due respect, I’m going to take the family to watch this as soon as we can, and we expect to enjoy it at least as much as we did Black Panther and Captain Marvel, and please stop making it so that I can’t have nice things just because you’ve moved on to something else.
While we’re at it, I’d quite like a second season of the Imperfects and Lockwood & Co, a third season of The Tick, and maybe a few fewer seasons of “reality” shows about competitive baking, house-flipping, or extreme survival/competitive back-stabbing. Or not: it’s not like I have to watch them. If they make you happy, go nuts, I suppose.
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I am dying wanting to talk about it so fucking bad; but this is not the place to spoil anything 
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And Meanwhile, Mattel has decided that the success of Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” means that Americans are clamoring to see “The Uno Movie,” “The Hot Wheels Movie,” “The Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em Robots Movie,” and “The Magic 8 Ball Movie.”
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They missed an opportunity. Real Steel already exists.
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They wisely put “Toy Cybertruck: the Movie” on hold though.
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