When will the Comic Book Movie fatigue hit the majority of fans? Or has it already begun/happened?

[Bedinsis]

The pedantic part in me would like to point out that "Comic Book Movie" is not the same as "Super hero" movie. Persepolis from 2007 is for instance a comic book movie, yet nobody has any super powers. I mention this distinction because I don't really care for Super Hero movies. Never have. As for movies based on comic books in general, I don't have anything against it. I mean, comic books should be easier to adapt to movies than other forms of media. Otherwise they cover a too wide spectrum to say anything about them as a whole.

 

[shrekfan246]

So for 2017 we have;

A gritty down-to-earth R-rated drama, that is a swan-song for a beloved rendition of a character
An upbeat Space Opera sequel featuring a talking raccoon
A WW1 Alt History featuring a strong female protagonist
Another Spider-man film

Fixed it for you.

I take it you're one of the people who isn't getting tired of comic book superhero films, then.

 

[Imre Csete]

I got my fatigue with Age of Ultron, the whole point of these shared cinematic universe movies are the big crossovers, and Avengers 2 was way too meh to justify all the homework you had to do beforehand. I hope they'll have the balls to kill off the long runner cast in Infinity War.

On the other hand, they are slowly turning into XY genre movies with Superheroes in it (Spy thriller with Cap, Heist movie with Antman), so some of the upcoming ones will be fun I hope.

 

[Rednog]

People are going to keep seeing them for quite a long time.
The main factor behind this is consistency. None of the Marvel movies are really bad, they vary between good and amazing for most people. With all the trash out there and the increasing cost of movie tickets the general audience is going to hedge their bets with what they know is most likely going to give them the most bang for their buck.

 

[gigastar]

I think the fatigue has already hit. And its going to get worse when Marvel inevitably compromises their artwork to support a political message, just like they did with their comics.

 

[DaCosta]

So for 2017 we have;

A gritty down-to-earth R-rated drama, that is a swan-song for a beloved rendition of a character
An upbeat Space Opera sequel featuring a talking raccoon
A WW1 Alt History featuring a strong female protagonist
Another Spider-man film

Fixed it for you.

My thoughts exactly.

Except that I would add that Homecoming isn't another Spider-Man movie, it's pretty different from the previous ones, mainly on being not nearly as dour (No funeral scenes! Can you believe it?). Sure, they could have achieved that with the usual MCU sarcastic bent, but they kept Peter wide-eyed and optmistic, for which my glad.

 

[sageoftruth]

That would be difficult for me. I seem to have some kind of anti-hype bias for seeing movies, as I do for almost anything that makes me spend time away from home. It's not debilitating. I can combat my biases and force myself to leave the house without too much difficulty, but feeling any excitement about it before I'm already doing it is quite the uphill battle, so I pretty much started out with my movie hype already burnt out.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I don't think I could ever get tired of superhero/comic book movies. I grew up on superhero cartoons like Batman, Spiderman, X-Men, TMNT. Thus, that subject matter will always interest me. With that said, there's probably like only 5 of the MCU movies that I really really like/love. You're going to get a lot of just OK to bad movies regardless of genre, you don't have to see them all. What always keeps me from getting tired is when a really great movie comes out like this year's Logan or Lego Batman. I also think superhero movies have a higher potential than the action hero movies that were big when I was a kid. I remember when seeing the first X-Men movie in high school and just being relieved that it didn't suck. Actually getting a superhero movie as good as The Dark Knight, Logan, Avengers when I was kid/teenager was unfathomable. I wouldn't mind seeing "the supply" of superhero movies dropping off with less emphasis on the universes.

 

[Gennadios]

They're still great, but it's no longer something worth showing up early on opening day to see. It was 3 weeks into release before I saw Wonder Woman, and I still hadn't seen the new iteration of Espiderman.

I get around to seeing them, I'm just not really doing it with any sense of urgency nowadays.

 

[Guffe]

Well sort of yeah. I still think they are fun movies, but releasing 3 every year makes it feel a bit too much at times.
I liked SpiderMan in the way that, it reminded me a lot about my childhood spidey.

I am hyped for Thor Ragnarok though!!!
But overall when it comes to the ComicBookMovies, I think they are good movies and fun to watch, but not much more.

 

[McElroy]

Yeah, AoU was boring and Civil War burned me for good. I guess the DC stuff or even Deadpool can keep me on board, but I'm not paying for any MCU release anymore.

 

[RedRockRun]

I don't know if this is an arrow that can be pulled out. It's like the blockbuster era which has been going strong since 1975? Think we'll ever get a film like, "McCabe and Mrs. Miller," or, "Five Easy Pieces," that isn't self-funded, crowd-funded, or made by Christopher Nolan who only gets funding because Batman? Fuck no. Some things are here to stay.

 

[Wrex Brogan]

I'm certainly fatigued over the 'Big Ones' - I enjoyed GoTG2 and Wonder Woman and am looking forward to Black Panther, but the next Avengers flick I'm quietly dreading since there's apparently going to be something like 50 fucking characters in it. Like, fuck me guys, little overboard there, don't you think? And Justice League just looks... so bad. The 'here's a dozen heroes doing a thing' movie just... doesn't appeal to me anymore.

I like my super hero movies when they've got a strong character focus as well as some sweet action scenes. The dozen heroes punching things movies just don't have the time for any sweet character stuff, and as they keep adding more and more characters to them it just gets so draining to try and keep up with them all.

 

[Bat Vader]

Yeah, AoU was boring and Civil War burned me for good. I guess the DC stuff or even Deadpool can keep me on board, but I'm not paying for any MCU release anymore.

Just curious but what did you dislike about Civil War?

 

[Silent Protagonist]

I've seen plenty of people get sick of superhero movies, skip a few, then get back into them. If Hollywood plays its cards right they can use this phenomenon to keep the percentage of the population with genre fatigue relatively constant and sustain this particular cash cow for a long time.

Hollywood will not play its cards right.

 

[Vausch]

I'm curious why you think people who would most frequent these movies would experience fatigue.

Some of us have been reading comics for decades and buy issues of series we like every single week, only occasionally stopping if the story arc gets terrible or they pull some decision that should not be (Hydra Steve Rogers, anyone?.

Plus, that's 4 movies in one year. Assuming you watch all of them, and assuming that we get another 2 or 3, that's at most 14 hours a year dedicated to watching the movies. That's at most a long Netflix binge spread out over a YEAR.

 

[Kingjackl]

I wouldn't say I've got "comic movie fatigue" (Logan and Wonder Woman were two of my favourites from this year) but I am starting to get MCU fatigue. Film Crit Hulk published an article about Civil War which does a great job of summing up my feeling. Namely that they've become so good at creating a "likeable" tone, they forgo drama and brush off lasting consequences. Character development has become shallow because we know the characters have to be present and correct in their most marketable incarnation for Avengers 4 or whatever.

I think it was Doctor Strange that really did it in for me. A lot of people liked that movie, but I just saw it as a weaker 'Iron Man'. The same basic theme and premise with half the effort. They even had the same ending where the hero supposedly sacrifices himself to stop the threat, which is a fairly standard way for these redemption arc narratives to go. But where Iron Man played it straight, Dr Strange played it for a gag ("Dormammu, I've come to bargain"). An inventive gag, but a gag nonetheless. The difference is they were still trying to tell stories during Iron Man, whereas by Dr Strange they were committed to the idea that story doesn't matter because only the Avengers movies are (theoretically, anyway) allowed to have stakes.

 

[Hawki]

Comic book movie fatigue? No. Valerian & Amelie is a comic book movie, but clearly in a different genre than stuff like Logan or Wonder Woman.

"Superhero movie fatigue though? Well, kind of. Thing is, my ability to see movies is limited a lot by circumstance. Last year, I was working at a library about 10 minutes drive from a cinema. Nowadays, I don't have that luxury. So there's only a few movies I'm able to see by myself. If it's a family outing, rest assurred that we're never going to see a superhero or even action movie, because that's not in their realm of interest. And while seeing such films this year has given me gems like Hidden Figures (#3 movie of the year for me), it's also led to me seeing films like A Quiet Passion and Jackie (#3 & #1 worst films of the year).

But, back to the subject. I guess I'm more indifferent than anything, but I feel that of the "big three" superhero universes (which I think is what this thread is really getting at more than anything), they each have their share of problems for me.

-XCU: Well, on one hand, it gave me Logan, which is the #4 movie I've seen this year, and probably my #3 superhero movie if I made such a list. On the other hand, this universe also gave me drek like Deadpool and Apocalypse. I think the XCU is to superhero movies what DreamWorks is to animated movies. They're clearly capable of doing great work, but their output is very uneven, and often flawed, but at least flawed in different ways.

-DCEU: The DCEU is kind of the 'wild child' in this race. I've seen its first three films, and while I like Man of Steel and Suicide Squad, I can't in good faith call either of them "good." BvS is very flawed, but at least flawed in interesting ways. Thing is, while the DCEU movies I've seen haven't been that good, they've at least been interesting, in both their strengths and failures. But even so, I just really don't care what happens beyond Justice League, because it seems like this universe is struggling to stay afloat. Yes, Wonder Woman did great, and is all but confirmed to get a sequel because of it, but the DCEU feels reactionary. Interesting, but reactionary. And again, for me, without a single "good" film yet (haven't seen WW, so that could change).

-MCU: More than anything else, this is the primary source for superhero fatigue for me. And more than anything, I don't get why this damn thing keeps going. I mean, okay, I've never seen a "bad" MCU film, and it's given me three genuinely good ones, but by god, almost every film in this damn universe feels the same. Same tone, same characters, same arcs, same everything. It's got the opposite problem to the DCEU for me - the DCEU is interesting, but flawed. The MCU is solid, but boring. And, look, I'm not going to hate on people loving what they love, but how do people keep going to see this stuff?

-Sonyverse: Is this still a thing? Is the Venom movie actually happening? Well, whatever. It gave me Amazing Spider-Man. Bleh.

Here's the thing. If I had to rank my top 3 superhero movies off the top of my head, they'd probably be The Dark Knight, Spider-Man 2, and Logan. The first two aren't part of any cinematic universe, and the third feels self-contained. As things become franchises, they start to blend together for me.

So, concerning what other people have said:

Comic book movies are fine. It's superhero stories I'm sick to death of.

Basically this.

(No funeral scenes! Can you believe it?).

Well, yeah. It's an MCU film. We can't have consequences or anything like that.

 

[WolfThomas]

My thoughts exactly.

Except that I would add that Homecoming isn't another Spider-Man movie, it's pretty different from the previous ones, mainly on being not nearly as dour (No funeral scenes! Can you believe it?). Sure, they could have achieved that with the usual MCU sarcastic bent, but they kept Peter wide-eyed and optmistic, for which my glad.

I haven't actually gotten around to seeing it so I couldn't really comment on it.

I take it you're one of the people who isn't getting tired of comic book superhero films, then.

No I'm not. Though I also haven't been watching everything that comes out (which is an option crazy). I hadn't actually seen BVS or Suicidie Squad until they turned up on my Netflix. I did miss Wonder Woman, I was planning to see it but time slipped away from me.