There is no doubt that comic book adaption has been the dominant form of movie entertainment for more than a decade now. There is also no doubt that momentum is slowing.
Many people talk of the Marvel Studios slump post-Endgame. The DCEU never really got going. There are two main reasons often floated as to the issue here. The first one is quantity over quality. There were simply far too many projects being churned out and the quality assurance simply couldn’t be applied.
Marvel’s very own Captain America, Chris Evans, was asked about this at Emerald City Comic Con. He said that even with lower output, making coming book movies isn’t as easy as people presume it is:
“If it was easy, there’d be a lot more good ones – not trying to throw shade. Some Marvel projects are objectively phenomenal films.”
Marvel Studios is currently trying to change things up, spacing out releases and stepping up quality control rather than simply maintaining a product pipeline. So what of the other issue, flat-out superhero fatigue?
Paul Dano starred in Matt Reeves’ The Batman as The Riddler, and in an interview with The Independent he admitted it is real, but not insurmountable:
“It’s an interesting moment where everybody has to go like, ‘OK – what now?’ Hopefully from that, somebody either breathes new life into [comic book movies], or something else blossoms which is not superheroes. I’m sure there will still be some good ones yet to come, but I think it’s kind of a welcome moment.”
He says it isn’t just superhero movies, but the quest for “content” that has really hit quality:
“It’s a larger thing, too. As soon as the word ‘content’ came into what we do – meaning making movies or TV – it meant quantity over quality, which I think was a big misstep. And I certainly don’t need that as a viewer or as an artist.”
He said quality will be key, starting with a great script, and he says The Batman was one of those movies:
“There are enough comic book movies where you just know what you’re gonna get. Reading the script for The Batman, you knew it was a real film. Every sentence… that’s just Matt Reeves.”
The Batman, to me, is the Avatar of comic book films. It came along, it was big, I watched it and enjoyed it… but it has completely faded from memory with little or no impact on the zeitgeist. It has been lost in the noise from the DCU and James Gunn. It is not like The Dark Knight was to Batman Begins, where a sequel was eagerly anticipated and every morsel of news consumed.
Filming on The Batman: Part II will take place later this year and that film will be released on October 3rd, 2025.
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