Movies
Is Superhero Fatigue Real?
Have you ever felt sick of following up on superhero plots and having to watch every single project in a franchise, regardless of whether you are interested or not? Then you might have experienced superhero fatigue.
As reported in Variety, James Gunn believes that superhero fatigue is owing to a lack of attention in the writing process. He added, “You can’t be telling the same ‘good guy, bad guy, giant thing in the sky, good guys win’ story again. You need to tell stories that are more morally complex. You need to tell stories that don’t just pretend to be different genres, but actually are different genres.”
Creators are learning that “superhero” is the character, not the genre. There are so many different ways to tell a superhero narrative. What they have to do now is to figure out how to develop a comedy starring a superhero, an action film starring a superhero, a horror film starring a superhero, and so on. The genre is the genre, and the superhero is the character.
If we look back, before they started considering the MCU a genre in itself, genre variance was critical to the MCU’s success. The diverse tones can be seen in many of the earlier Phases’ films, but everything in the MCU has recently started to take on a fairly similar flavor.
Captain America: The First Avenger was a war movie, Captain America: The Winter Soldier was a spy thriller, Guardians of the Galaxy was space opera, Ant-Man was kind of a heist movie, and so on. CA:TWS was a masterpiece, not just for its absolute devotion to the espionage thriller tone until the inevitable genre transition, but also for making the genre shift an important narrative element that fits into the film’s broader concept. I absolutely adore that movie.
Gunn is not wrong. There are ways to make the narrative more interesting without contradicting what the characters stand for and represent. But to sustain their following, superhero movies, like any other genre, must shift tone and switch things up. DC accomplished this with The Batman, which is why it made the money it did.
WandaVision is a perfect example of the MCU formula getting dried out. The first six or so episodes were a breath of fresh air. There was a mystery as to what was going on, and the sitcom gimmick throughout the decades was entertaining. The mystery was answered in the last three or four episodes, and then it degraded into the standard Marvel action formula. We need more of WandaVision’s first half and less of its last half.
It might seem like I am biased against the MCU. I’m not. I’m a fan. I respect and adore the MCU as the most successful franchise ever. However, the MCU is mostly responsible for this superhero fatigue phenomenon. Viewers are tired of feeling obligated to do ‘homework’ before watching a new movie. “How many seasons of the TV shows should I rewatch? What movies is this related to? What is written in the class syllabus?” It’s all losing its appeal and turning into fatigue.
Gunn is correct. Some people are tired of the pomp and idiocy of superhero movies with generic plots. Decent storytelling will hopefully make things better. But, many people are simply weary of comic book superhero movies overall. Even I am experiencing this, unless it’s something that plays it all up for laughs, like Peacemaker or even Deadpool.
Is superhero fatigue real or not? It’s real but I don’t believe superhero fatigue is a general phenomenon. The truth is that superhero movies will always sell. But if you are experiencing it, that is because you have superhero movie fatigue.
Maybe you need to lay off CBMs for a while and then come back. You’ll probably enjoy them again at that point. You can also watch something different and fresh in the meantime. I highly recommend The Boys, Brightburn, The Umbrella Academy, Deadly Class and The Crow.
