Remember when comic book movies were a sure bet at the box office? It wasn’t that long ago. A decade or so ago Hollywood went all in on the genre, predicting that audiences would never tire of interconnecting movies and shows about people with superpowers. Well, they did. Last year only one of them (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3) made bank. The rest either underperformed or outright tanked. The trend hasn’t stopped with the new year. But is that a bad thing? One of the stars of a rare recent superhero smash doesn’t think so.
That person is Paul Dano, acclaimed actor, filmmaker, and a chilling Riddler in the Robert Pattinson-led The Batman. In a chat with The Independent (in a bit teased out by IndieWire), he prefers to think of superhero fatigue as an opportunity, not a crisis (or, as Homer Simpson would put it, “crisitunity”).
“It’s an interesting moment where everybody has to go like, ‘OK – what now?’” Dano said. “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.”
Dano sees this as part of a larger shift in the entertainment industry. “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,” he said. “And I certainly don’t need that as a viewer or as an artist.”
So what could replace superhero movies? Could it be another genre? Or perhaps people will instead go back to craving variety, demanding Hollywood give them all manner of films rather than just two or three. After all, one of the biggest hits of the last few months was a rom-com. A return of the mid-budget film — which don’t need to make a billion dollars to turn a profit — is one way to keep audiences going to the movies.
(Via The Independent and IndieWire)
