Another year, another 500 superhero movies for us to digest.
It seems like every year, we get more and more of these things, and every year billions of people worldwide flock to them.
Even though we are almost 10 years into the “superhero cycle,” 2017 may have been the best year for superhero films yet.
The year began with Fox’s second attempt at a superhero film with some kind of originality in March’s “Logan” and culminated with DC’s enjoyable mess “Justice League” last month.
In between, Marvel showed no signs of slowing with “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” in May, “Spiderman: Homecoming” in July and most recently “Thor: Ragnarok” in November, all of which were massive hits.
As previously mentioned, both Fox and Warner Bros. saw their little pockets of success with “Logan” and “Wonder Woman,” but Marvel’s tour-de-force in the genre is remarkably showing more sustainability than ever.
This is most apparent when seeing a film like “Justice League.” The Zack Snyder/Joss Whedon mash-up showed many improvements and changes to make one feel an inkling of positivity for the DC Extended Universe moving forward.
However, it’s difficult not to notice all of the flaws of the film when compared to how Marvel handled its superhero films.
What Warner Bros. is failing to recognize when it comes to these types of films is basically the one thing that made these characters a success in the first place.
Marvel Studios and President Kevin Feige understand that if you want to make a “comic book film universe,” you have to treat it like a comic book series.
This rushed structure of films goes against everything that the characters being utilized were built upon. Warner Bros. was banking on the success of Marvel’s films as well as the name-recognition of its own characters to build their own universe without thinking about what made the Marvel Cinematic Universe so unique.
All of the Marvel films feel like one long comic book run even down to the “filler” issues. Rather than giving us something new and different to indulge, they mostly exist to service and enrich the greater “Infinity War” plot or simply exist to repeat what its predecessor accomplished. These films lack the excitement and spectacle of more recent films like “Captain America: Civil War,” “Ant Man” or “Thor: Ragnarok.” It wasn’t until after these filler films established everything that was needed to be established that we were allowed such creative films as “Doctor Strange” and “Guardians of the Galaxy.”
Marvel gets a lot of flack for making superhero films feel tired when in reality it’s quite the opposite. Now that the universe feels very lived in and we are used to so many of its conventions, Marvel feels comfortable taking risks and trusting unique and against-the-mainstream directors such as Taika Waititi, director of “Thor: Ragnarok.”
Zack Snyder and Warner Bros. believed that it was the nostalgia and massive spectacle of visual effects that put people into seat. In reality, it was time, love and careful planning, which I predict will lead Marvel to breaking all of the box office records by the time “Avengers: Infinity War” drops next May.
