Superhero Films Just Don’t Feel Essential Anymore

Superhero movies seem to have lost their momentum at the box office, with the last two entries from Marvel and DC facing audience apathy; superhero movies seem to be slipping from their pop culture pedestal.

Shazam 2 opened to a limp $30.5 million domestic, and Ant-Man: Quantumania never lived up to its $106 million opening weekend, sputtering toward a $462 million global total and unlikely to hit $500 million.

This is disappointing, considering that Quantumania was a vital stepping stone to Marvel’s next big crossover event, introducing Kang (Jonathan Majors) the big bad of the MCU’s Phase 5. Technically, it is Kang’s second introduction, if you count his appearance on the Disney+ series Loki.

Marvel Studios seems to be suffering from the same issues the comics did, releasing too much, too soon, resulting in a confused, fatigued audience. DC, on the other hand, has been inconsistent and messy for years; new DC bosses James Gunn and Peter Safran have pledged to clean things up, having recently shown off their new slate.

It was never really clarified if Shazam was going to be part of the new plan for DC, which perhaps explains some of the audience disinterest. Plus, fans already got burned on Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam, which featured a post-credits scene promising the return of Henry Cavill as Superman, which is no longer happening.

Post-credit scenes, a fun feature first introduced by the MCU, have grown stale, often holding empty promises and underwhelming reveals; The Eternals post-credits scene, for example, introduces Harry Styles to the MCU, along with a creature known as “Pip the Troll.”

There’s a stench of desperation to the superhero landscape; Marvel has started taking legal action against spoilers (they’re currently attempting to track down an anonymous script-leaker from Reddit), despite little of consequence having occurred in their films since Iron Man sacrificed himself.

Even the conversation around these franchises has undergone a dramatic tonal shift; previously, actors, writers and directors would talk about their superhero films with reverence, recognizing that they were riding a popular wave into a big payday. Now, they post defensive tweets, and still seem angry at Martin Scorsese for criticizing the MCU four years ago.

Shazam director David F. Sandberg posted on Twitter that he’s done with superheroes for now, while star Rachel Zegler tweeted about the box office failure of Shazam, writing that some people were being “senselessly mean” and asked the public to “give it a chance.”

Quantumania screenwriter Jeff Loveness said he was left “despondent” by the negative response to his film, and pushed back against fan criticism over his controversial interpretation of comic villain MODOK, stating: “No, [the reviews] are wrong! I’m right! MODOK is great!”

It’s all kind of a downer, especially compared to the heights of Infinity War, when it seemed that superhero movies were just going to continue soaring to new heights at the box office.

It’s unclear who the Avengers are nowadays, because they don’t seem to team up anymore. DC is full of half-remembered heroes who, seemingly, aren’t coming back. On the outskirts, there’s oddities like Morbius, a movie which seemed to be clinging on to the tattered edges of the MCU, and might crossover one day, maybe? Possibly with Tom Hardy’s Venom?

In a sense, the Morbius meme, an ironic celebration of bland, corporate mediocrity, encapsulated how many feel about the current crop of superhero movies; increasingly interchangeable costumed crusaders soaring around a tangled web of shared universes and multiverses where, if they’re lucky, they might get to stand beside Spider-Man in the next sequel.

Unless one has been doing their homework, it all just seems like a tangled mess; the clean simplicity of the early MCU isn’t coming back.

Is superhero fatigue finally kicking in?

Audiences are still willing to show up for superhero movies, if they feel like an event. But it’s not hard to see that superhero films tend to fall short compared to other genre films.

For sci-fi, compare the muddy, muted Quantumania to the vibrant world of Avatar 2, or Doctor Strange’s dull jaunt through the multiverse to the existential musings of Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. For action, audiences are better off watching Tom Cruise performing a death-defying stunt, or Keanu Reeves shoot up a roomful of assassins than watching a masked actor float in front of a green screen.

Iconic superheroes like Spider-Man, Batman and the Joker still seem able to draw big numbers and spark conversation; the former by soaking in nostalgia, and the latter by boasting unique, distinctive takes on familiar characters.

Will superhero movies become essential again?

Some will. Marvel has yet to use Majors to his full potential, and once his Kang is facing characters like Shang-Chi, She-Hulk and Ms. Marvel, he’s likely to make more of an impression. When Marvel eventually begins to incorporate the X-Men and Fantastic Four, fans are going to be interested to see how the iconic characters have been rebooted.

Plus, Superman’s next incarnation will see a fresh take from James Gunn, which could well revitalize a character who always seemed a tad lost in the modern landscape.

Essential or otherwise, superhero movies have become absorbed into mainstream pop culture, and seem to have lost their novelty. They’re just movies now.