All I know is that mainstream comics (those from Marvel and DC) have suffered a great deal since the rise of the superhero film. They are complete crap, whereas they were pretty smart social commentaries before the BOOM. Where I used to read a ton of comics, I rarely pick 'em up anymore (with the exception of the return of Scud and Jeff Smith's take on Shazam) due to a new "epic" crossover every time I turn around. On the other hand, I don't know if I would've found the lovely and amazing Scott Pilgrim without the news it was being made into a film by Edgar Wright, but I think some of the indie books have a little more heart to them and could transalte a lot better/easier onto film.

As long as these superhero films are drawing big name talent in front of and behind the camera, they will continue to remain successful, on the whole. There may be a few that underperform in the US but even those can make up for it in foreign sales.

If Iron Man proves anything, is that even a 2nd tier character can bring enthusiasm and big money (just wait) as long as they are done with quality. If only Electra and Man-Thing could have known that.

Hell, even Ghost Rider did boffo business and that film was crap. Sometimes even a shitty adaptation can do well if it has enough kickass shots to cut into a trailer along with a bankable star.

As much as I love the best superhero movies, I think the trend is almost over. The rise of the superhero movie has aided in the boom of megabudget movies. As New Line's recent experience shows, that trend isn't sustainable.

As soon as one of these $250-300 mil. supe movies capsizes at the box office, Hollywood will quickly put a hold on future projects. After that, pics like Scott Pilgrim (lower budgeted pomo takes on the supes–Powers, for example) will still get green-lit but no more Spider Mans, etc for a while.

Which will probably be a good thing. The current studio system seems too much like '60s Hollywood to survive. I think that graphic novels and non-supe comics will still get made and could be parter of a larger movement to make smaller movies aimed at specific demographics.

Yeah, I think we have to remember that superhero movies have given filmmakers unprecedented possibilities to show the audience spectacle. And as long as spectacle and eyecandy are something that gets people to the theater I think we're "stuck" with them.

Could there be a burn-out? Sure, but the sad truth is that as long as new "exciting, groundbraking action scenes" are being made in the genre – people will see the movies.

I am not complaining, though. I am looking very much forward to Iron Man, The Dark Knight and Hellboy II.

Could the door be opening for other comic adaptations other than superhero stuff? It's possible, but I kind of doubt it. But fingers crossed. I'd love to see Ed Brubaker's Criminal and Andy Diggle's Losers to just name two of the more wellknown series.

But hopefully there will be more comic book adaptations that aren't superhero orientated. Come to think of it, Ghost World was one of the first non-superhero comic adaptations, right?

The supers will eventually fade away. There are only a select few characters that are universally identificable. The B and C level supers have to be carefully nutured by a passionate creative (Ha!)…The ultimate demise of the supers, $5.00 comic books.

"I missed last weekend's discussion because I was off having the time of my life in Hawaii"

Can't be too hard to have 'the time of your life' when you're a fat, 35 year old, internet nerd. Just getting out of the house and being in the same physical space as actual women would have blown your mind.

The hero comics make it possible for the indie comics to have a place to be sold. Seriously… that's why we need SUPERHERO MOVIES because they get movies like BLACK HOLE made. This is just the way of the world.

Would be nice to see a few real chances being taken with graphic novels out there – yeah there's WATCHMEN, but reputedly Snyder has toed the studio line and gone with the cop-out ending that was written for the script, and which infuriated Alan Moore so much. The real gems are yet to be made – stuff like THEREFORE REPENT! which would infuriate the Western Christian world (of which I am a part, sinners!) but is awesome, and WE3, which would be the new Watership Down. Even stuff like HACK/SLASH – done right, and allegedly starring Megan Fox, this could be a whole new franchise. Which is what the superhero genre needs – more outside chances, more risks on lesser-known characters that could become the NEXT Spider-Man, Superman or Batman. Hell, even PUNISHER 2 could have been great jhad they done two things: kept Thomas Jane, who was fine in the first movie, and then listened to Jane when he told the studio to either hire Garth Ennis to write it or stick to a straight Garth Ennis adaptation for P2. They ignored him – ergo, PUNISHER 2 will suck big salty donkey balls. But there's life in this genre yet – Hollywood just needs to find its balls and read the more obscure stuff. Just like in the early '90s…

I think some of the A-list characters like Spider-Man and Superman deserve better movies before the trend dies out, let alone the b-listers.

Superhero movies will never die, they might just take a break for a while, like 10 or so years but only when they stop making money. Then one day someone will say 'Hey remember Superman, that would make a good movie' and they will be back.

Superhero movies have the potential to be great. I just wish they would realize the true potential and not give us everything we want at one, and spread it out a bit. James Bond lasted for 20 films before they altered the formula, X-men could last 100 films if they paced them correctly and allowed the characters to go in each one. But instead they Hollywood it up, fill the movie with several villains and kill them off.

I think TV shows would be better suited to the genre than Movies are.

all the movies above look at least OK from what is known.
this discussion is useless.
tell a good story and i dont care if someone in it is able to fly or turn green.

agree with andreas…fiction is fiction…most of the time a superhero movie is your basic morality tale, which i love…its awesome how many different ways you can tell a story in film now

The superhero subgenre will not die until some auteur indie geek makes a film in his backyard that appears to have the production value of a $150 million dollar Hollywood movie. I pray for that day.

As much as I'm lookink forward to the new batch, I have a bad feeling the super hero market's about to crash. The Iron Man trailers got me giddy, but my friends and co-workers were all *meh* and *gaaayyy!*. It's funny during this boom, we've only really gotten 3 great films outa the deal: X2, Spider-Man 2, and Ang Lee's Hulk. And those are the 3 all the non-geek straights & squares hate. (Go to the netflix customer reviews and observe how many times the unwashed use the words boring & slow to describe SM2 & Hulk) The studios seem to want to play it safe(Look how they fucked Raimi's SM3) If the future is more Daredevils, Ghost Riders &,(sorry Dev)Fantastic Fours or the titles are given to the likes of Ratner, Story, Snyder, and Leterrier-I say let the genre die.

X2 wasn't hated by anyone i know. I know no geeks like myself. X2 is the T2 of the Supehero sub-genre people. Hulk is far better than most any superhero film since it's release, sans Spidey 2 and Batman Begins <despite it's sub-par 3rd act>

I don't understand why people love X2 so much. Ever since The Usual Suspects, Bryan Singer has only really made made average movies with a TV-aesthetic. Which is exactly what the X-men movies are.

If they make them well, they can make 'em till the cows come home. Way I see it, it's just another genre and this topic is like saying, "Do we need more comedy movies?"

Of course the audience will suffer burnout. I think we'll see a little of that this summer. As good as it looks, I don't think Iron Man will do as well as we all would hope. The Hulk will probably need killer word of mouth to be considered a smash, and the Punisher, well, it's the Punisher. I think it might be a mistake to release Hellboy II in the middle of summer, it might make better sense to push it back to September or even October. When the hell are we going to see a Captain America movie? He's A list comic book, right? Then again, as my father would tell me, "What the hell do you know?"

The only thing that will kill the comic book gene is if it continues to repeat itself. Not every comic book movie needs to be an origin story told with black leather uniforms. The other major threat is the studios themselves-it seems like the WB is intent on making the same mistakes with JLA that they did with Catwoman and the Schumacher Bat-Bombs. Spiderman worked because Raimi was a fan-as is Favreau. As long as these properties remain in the hands of people who actually give a dam about the source material,I think the genre will be around for a long long time….

As was pointed out, no genre dies for ever. But what could slow them down for a while is if the vast majority of superhero movies that come out in the next 3 years or so don't surprise audiences, or in some way go against audiences' conventional superhero movie expectations. Watchmen should do that, and if done even half right, should give the genre a shot in the arm which will last a few years.

I don't know much about Hancock or Wanted to know if they are different enough. If Hancock is in any way in the same vein as My Super Ex-Girlfriend it won't do much, as it will fall into the 'spoof' genre along with Superhero Movie.

I'm looking forward to Iron Main and Hellboy II, but my hope is that the current crop of superhero movies (especially Watchmen) will inspire studios to look at a few more original graphic novels.

I agree with a previous comment that superhero movies give the studio a chance to have an event movie with spectacle. They are not going anywhere for a while, simply because there is a crop of writers and directors that grew up on comics and they will work on projects that are dear to them. Having said that, I don't see Watchmen giving the genre any kind of a shot in the arm — wasn't the whole point of that book a deconstruction of the genre? Supers (and none of them were, save Dr. Manhattan) were shown to be impotent and not a true force for change. So why would you think a movie that will/should feature a hero who gets his rocks off to women in costume while he's dressed in fetishwear will boost interest in Batman and Wolverine? 🙂 There will, as Devin stated, be a cycle and the glut will fade away — whether that leaves us with the cream of the crop or the scum of the earth is unknown, but if it means that studios stop greenlighting every movie from a director with "passion" (hi, Daredevil! Come on in, and bring Ghost Rider with you!) or brands with some name recognition (Catwoman, don't be shy, step into the light where we can see you!) and actually start looking at the quality behind and in front of the lens then we may end up with a series of movies that are worthy of the talented artists who inspired them.

…you say these movies are on the way out, but you just wait till next years big action feature "Chewbacca: Always Let The Wookie Win"…

As long as the product is GOOD, people won't grow tired of it. My great fear is that the superhero movies that I long to see the most(Batman and Hellboy) will somehow suck. Out of all of the suerhero flicks coming soon, Dark Knight is the surest thing. I really, REALLY want Hellboy II to be great, and I want enough people to see i so I can get a HBIII.

The only way that "Superhero movies" will die off is if it becomes TOO MUCH a seperate genre unto itself. The non-geek public will eventually have enough of superhero movies, but they'll NEVER get sick of action movies, thrillers, comedies etc. The trick is to make sure that each 'superhero movie' works first and foremost as an ACTION MOVIE (or whatever) that just happens to have a hero with a unique uniform and nickname. Or "Hulk," for another example, which is basically a "monster movie" that happens to be based on a comic book.

I think they're probably gonna go the way of most pop-cimena trends (i.e."DIE HARD on a….") and fade away, except, possibly for the iconic characters. Frankly, I'm amazed they got this far. I wouldn't have thought that Iron Man or Thor had enough gen-pop cachet to stake hundreds of millions of dollars on.

I think most people have the right idea concerning this issue. I just want to say to sven vollstag that you're embarrassingly unfunny, and next time you feel like you have to make a joke, you shouldn't. It's really about time that unfunny people started recognizing that they're unfunny. It's also a bummer that there's another Bob who posts in these talkbacks. That's all, thanks folks.

I will be the first to cheer when the superhero movie has finally run its course. Nearly every movie uses the same plot, just insert <blank> superhero with <blank> supervillian and start rolling film. Other than Hellboy — which I've never really considered a superhero comic — I have no interest in seeing any comic book movie this summer and will skip them all. I think sameness of superhero movies has mostly to do with the weakness of the genre, given superhero comics are the equivalent of daytime soap opera, only aimed at 30-year-old men instead of housewives. (Bad dialogue, melodrama, overuse of the same plots, continuously resurrecting dead characters, etc.) It is frustrating to me because there are a lot of non-superhero comics out there that would make better films, but more importantly, there are a lot of science fiction and fantasy novels and stories that would make great films as well. The comic book fanbase is partly to blame for the current trend, given they have such low standards for entertainment, elevating what should be children's power fantasies into something they are not. But more than anything, the comic book trend is just Hollywood playing it safe, as usual. Like the many fantasy films since Lord of the Rings, producers are just sticking to a formula that has shown box-office success in the past and will move on once the public tires of it.

But aren't superhero/comic-book movies just an easier way to do the 'high concept summer blockbuster' thing? I mean throughout the 90's and before the recent trend in comic book movies there was always a big summer movie that was hyped to hell. I would have thought that with comic books, the studios have just realised that there is a motherload of adaptable material to build the same ultimately generic sci-fi/action spectaculars for the summer season. So why should they die out any time soon? I don't think it's an artistic trend were seeing; it's just what's commercially fashionable for the studios right now. There are only three superheroes (superman, batman and spiderman) that mainstream audiences recognize wholesale. The rest are mostly disposable…

Guys, I'm not so sure the trend will be dying out as soon as you think. People heralded the end of the "spoof movie" as early as the mid 1980s following the release of Airplane!, and the fact is we can still "look forward" to a new one being released twice a year. As long as people continue to throw their money at these kinds of movies, we'll continue to see them. Hollywood may be formulaic, but the fact is they know a safe bet when they see one.

Having 2 or 3 (big) super-hero movies per year is more than ok–sure, you can add the lesser known characters, but the big ones are the one that make the business

I forsee a lot more graphic novels like DMZ, Y:The Last Man or 100 Bullets being made rather than a Luke Cage movie. Adaptations of A History of Violence and Road to Perdition have proven that there is a market for non-superhero graphic novels. Hopefully studios will realize that a "comic book" inspired film that takes the source material seriously will always be loved and seen by film-goers.

Batman might be slightly better known than the Hulk – but Hulk IS just as "iconic", he's part of the probably the big four superheroes in pop-culture alongside Spider-Man, Superman and Batman.

You guys realize that the current Superhero Boom was started by a D-Level Supe, right? I mean, who the hell knew who 'Blade' was before the movie? I think it's not going anywhere, it may die down some, maybe lose some steam, but in the end, they'll still be here.

I think if your not into comic book movies you should look the other way for a good 10 years. Like it was stated before there are oodles of titles for producers to grab from and most would bring in some cash as long as they make it right. And even the not so good ones might do better going straight to DVD stead of movie-theaters. Personally I love the movies even the bad ones because they make me appreciate the good ones even more.

All I want is a fucking Lobo movie to be released. Then the super hero movies can go away.

Watchmen totally re-invented comics at a time when they had pretty much exhausted themselves and took the artform to a new level. I can totally see Watchmen doing the same thing for superhero movies. I love comics and superhero movies but after this year I hope Watchmen kills them off for a few years if only to avoid the inevitable burnout that Hancock 2: Han Cocker or my super ex-wife etc. do to the genre.

Shocker, the reason studios make movies about Superheroes is to MAKE MONEY? WTF? I thought all of those movies like Fargo, My Left Foot, etc. were the money makers!
I agree with the poster above who said it was like asking when are comedy movies going to fade away … it is a stupid question from a site that used to be good.
Oddly enough, and no matter how much money they make, "critics" always seem to think that popular movies should just fade away … because they are too cool to actually enjoy them.
OPIE AND ANTHONY! O&A PARTY ROCK! XM 202!

This can't die until I get my Green Lantern movie. Hal, not John, please.

Super hero films are no different than any other genre in motion pictures. With the advent of visual technology over the past 16 years, the super hero medium is taylor made for the silver screen because what other story telling could utilize it more than comic books figures? However, it all comes down to story telling in the long run. Movie goers will eventually get tired of all the gluttony of hero films and thus the studios will be more hard pressed to get people to see them. So the difference will be who can tell the best story and make the audience care about the characters. Over the next few years you'll see start to see a decline in super hero movies because of the financial risk they will pose for the studios. But the good news, especially for comic fans, is that the ones that will get made will be more story and character driven and not all CGI driven, which will make all the difference as far as truly being entertaining.