‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ Proves Superhero Fatigue Isn’t Really A Thing
There have been a lot of thought pieces written over the past few years about “superhero fatigue,” the idea that after dominating the box office for years, people are getting tired of superhero movies. Forbes published “What Really Caused Superhero Fatigue in 2023 and How To Fix It.” The Week called 2023 “The Year Of Superhero Fatigue,” warning that “the year may represent the end of an era for Hollywood.” The New York Times, meanwhile, asked, “Is This The Endgame For The Age Of Heroes?” (Clever headline!)
I’ll be upfront: I grew up reading comic books and have always been thrilled to see superheroes represented on screen. Richard Donner’s 1978 classic Superman was so exciting, even with its flaws — mainly time manipulation (a trope I’ll get into later). But it wasn’t time travel that messed up Superman: the series got watered down by bad sequels. Eleven years later, Tim Burton’s Batman was also amazing, and that series also got lame pretty quickly due to lousy sequels.
The moral here may be this: too many sequels could be a bad thing. But I think that the real lesson is that you need to let the story lead the movie, not marketing, not celebrity stunt casting, and not pressure to add as many new characters as possible. The first two Superman movies had solid stories. But by 1983’s Superman III, the movie’s producers were hellbent on casting Richard Pryor in the film after he said that he was a fan of the franchise. Richard Pryor is a legend, but the film didn’t hold up. By Superman IV, they’d lost the plot; it was named one of the “50 Worst Movies Ever” by Empire.
The Batman films followed a similar trajectory: the first two were great, but by the third film, 1995’s Batman Forever, both director Tim Burton and star Michael Keaton left, and the series devolved into stories that seemed motivated by adding as many characters as possible (to help sell more action figures). They also seemed to cater to new director Joel Schumacher’s desire to bring a sense of kitch back to the character, harkening back to the 1966 TV series.
But, as someone who loves superhero films, I never felt “tired” of them. I did feel like executives didn’t respect those of us who love really good superhero films. They figured that once they hooked us, they could throw any nonsense on screen, and we’d show up. The films, which started from a place of love, became only about commerce. The fans can sense when that happens.
Which brings me to the recently released Deadpool & Wolverine. As you may have heard, it’s been a massive success: it recently cleared the billion-dollar mark at the global box office. Per Variety, it will most likely pass 2019’s Joker (another film based on comic book characters) to be the highest-grossing R-rated film in history. And those two flicks are the only two R-rated movies that have grossed over a billion dollars. Clearly, people aren’t really tired of superhero (or supervillain) films.
So, what’s going on here? Well, it’s human nature to want to knock something down when it’s been too dominant for too long, and there are a lot of very loud critics of the genre. Legendary filmmakers didn’t love seeing their efforts get totally outgrossed by movies that they had nothing to do with, films that they didn’t like (and probably didn’t understand). That’s why you heard Stephen Speilberg saying that superhero films will go “the way of the western,” and Martin Scorsese insisting that “Marvel movies aren’t cinema,” and Quentin Tarantino complaining that superhero movies have eliminated the need for movie stars.
As you might guess, I will sit here and defend comic book movies all day long, but I’ll also admit they have had their share of problems. I’ll focus on the Marvel Cinematic Universe here. Starting with 2008’s Iron Man, the MCU changed the game, creating a series of interlocking films that remained mostly true to the source material. They balanced action and high stakes with humor and did a great job with casting, whether hiring famous actors (Robert Downey Jr., Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Paul Rudd) or lesser-known up-and-comers (Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Pratt).
When the MCU brought together their biggest heroes in 2012’s The Avengers, it felt like they’d earned their big moment. We were invested in Evans’ Captain America, Downey’s Iron Man, and so forth. And in 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War and 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, they brought in even more MCU characters: Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man and the Wasp. The films touched on all of their stories and gave them all a bit of the spotlight, and in some cases, featured their supporting casts too. It was an epic culmination of over 20 films and also was a moving sendoff for some of our favorite characters.
Endgame was always going to be difficult to follow. But it also involved time travel (that trope again!) and alternate timelines, a plot device that would gunk up the MCU for the next few years. To make things worse, in our universe, the pandemic hit months after Endgame. People were now really getting used to staying home instead of going to the theater. On top of all that, Marvel fans were about to experience a veritable explosion of content thanks to Disney’s new streaming service, Disney+. There have been nine live-action miniseries that take place in the MCU, with one of them – Loki – enjoying two seasons. They were all “important” to the overall MCU story to varying extents. That’s a lot of stuff to remember every time you see a new movie.
Some of Marvel’s recent films — notably 2022’s Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness and 2023’s Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania — got really bogged down in multiversal sludge. Even worse, the Doctor Strange film also ruined Wanda’s character development from the MCU’s best TV show, 2021’s Wandavision. So, Marvel was dealing with having to follow up an epic storyline that was a decade in the making, hours and hours of storylines to keep track of, and an audience that was getting more used to not going to the movie theaters. They were also adding time travel/alternate timelines as a major plot device, which is sometimes hard to follow and not always compelling. Compare that to Thanos: he was trying to get a bunch of Infinity Stones so he could be powerful enough to “snap” half of the galaxy out of existence. That was a plotline that most fans could easily wrap their head around.
Even still, reports of the end of superhero films are a bit exaggerated. There have been some classic post-Endgame films, namely 2022’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (which grossed $859 million worldwide) and 2023’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 ($845 million). Both films referenced Endgame, but pretty much stood on their own. And yeah, you probably needed to see the earlier Black Panther and Guardians films to appreciate them, but you didn’t need a PhD in Marvel history. And even though Deadpool & Wolverine was definitely a multiversal epic, it kind of poked fun at how complex the MCU has become. At its core, the movie was really about the characters. It was a fun story, and it was often hilarious (as the prior Deadpool films have been).
Superhero movies aren’t going anywhere. Like any other genre — war movies, romance, horror, sports movies, sci-fi, comedies — there will be good movies and bad ones. Of course, most superhero films tend to have big budgets, so the stakes are higher in that genre.
But as a long-time comic book reader and a guy who loves going to opening night for every superhero flick, here’s my advice to producers, particularly Marvel: Move away from alternate timeline stuff as soon as you can. If a film has a ton of backstory, post a video explainer on a free platform (i.e. not behind a Disney+ paywall). Give us the “Cliffnotes” so that we don’t have to spend hours catching up. Most people don’t have the time. But to the extent that you can do it, make the stories hold up on their own, first and foremost.
I’m really looking forward to February’s Captain America: Brave New World. The backstory can be easily explained, and it looks to be a more “grounded” story: it’s more about espionage than interplanetary, intergalactic, or multiversal threats. Marvel needs more stories like that.
And while I haven’t enjoyed a DC film since 2017’s Wonder Woman, it’s now a new day for that cinematic universe. I really can’t wait for 2025’s Superman movie, as I’ve recently mentioned. I got even more excited about it a few days ago when director/writer James Gunn posted about his process on Threads. He noted that he rarely has to do any “reshoots” on his movies. Reshoots are a common practice in films, particularly science fiction and superhero films. Often, these movies are cast, and they even start production before there’s a finished script.
When asked how he avoids reshoots, Gunn offered this insight into his process: “1) Over-prepare 2) Don’t start shooting until I have a finished script my whole team is happy with 3) Hire actors and department heads I know can do their jobs 4) Surround myself with people who will challenge me and not just yes-sir everything 5) Ask myself daily – are there any small imperfections in the script or what we’re shooting that might end up feeling like huge imperfections when we cut the film together? 6) 1 and 2 again!” (It’s actually a great model that can be transferred to many types of leadership, not just in filmmaking.)
Gunn is also co-CEO of DC Studios, and this bodes well for the future of that mega-franchise. He’s an exec who really understands that the story rules over everything else. Also, Gunn respects the fans because he is one. And–notably–his Guardians of the Galaxy films operated within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but never felt bogged down by that. Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige — and Feige’s boss, Disney CEO Bob Iger — would do well to pay attention to what Gunn does with DC moving forward. I know that I will be.
