No, Superhero Movies are NOT Like Westerns

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No god damn it, superhero movies are not like Westerns, and we're gonna talk about why.
Follow me on Twitter: / danpgsimpson
Filmography: letterboxd.com/pgcooper/list/...
Music Featured:
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Setup with an E by Small Colin
Both Flanks by Small Colin
Facing It by Komiku
Carnival by Smallertide
Sednoseteres by Hinterheim
End of the Trip by Komiku
The Zone by Komiku
Works Cited:
"Box Office Blues" by Farran Smith Nehme. selfstyledsiren.substack.com/...
"Why Superhero Movies Aren’t Like Westerns (and Probably Won’t be the Next Great Chapter in Genre…" by John Heath. filmschoolrejects.com/why-sup...
"Westerns, Part 2" by Ciara Maloney. thesundae.net/2020/09/15/west...
"Why Steven Spielberg is Right About Superhero Movies Being the New Western by" by David Crow. www.denofgeek.com/comics/why-...
"Predicting the Future of Superhero Movies Is Harder Than You Think" by Brandon Katz. observer.com/2021/06/future-o...
"Why Superhero Movies Won't Go the Way of the Western" by Chase Magnett. comicbook.com/movies/news/why...
"Superhero Movies are the new Westerns and Marvel is the new John Wayne" by Young Nat Turner. / superhero-movies-are-t...
"Are superhero movies really set to go the way of the western?" by Ben Child. www.theguardian.com/film/film...
"Eternals Director Chloé Zhao On Superhero Movies As The New Westerns, Examining Humanity Through Marvel [Interview]" by Hoai-Tran Bui. www.slashfilm.com/648990/eter...
"Steven Spielberg Predicts Superhero Movies Will Die Off Like Westerns" by Matt Patches. www.esquire.com/entertainment...
"Moon Knight's Ethan Hawke Compares the MCU to '50s Westerns" by Math Erao. www.cbr.com/moon-knight-ethan...
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[@blupunk01]

It's interesting to run across this at the end of 2023 when it seems like the superhero movie has run aground. The Aquaman sequel was the big last hope in a year where exactly one live-action film in the genre was considered financially successful (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3), and it is simply not performing up to expectations. Of course, The Flash was a disaster estimated to have lost its studio over $200 million for a variety of reasons, but even the third Ant-Man movie, which right now is number 10 at the global box office for the year, is estimated to have lost more than $125 million for Marvel Studios. Yes, there was another hit Spider-Man animated film, but the second Shazam movie and Blue Beetle earned less than the latest Evil Dead and Exorcist movies. The Marvels was hard-pressed to out-perform the Paw Patrol movie. Sure, top ten of the box office is still dominated by big-budget branded IP (with the sole exception of Oppenheimer at #3), but there does seem to have been some shake-up as far as what has and hasn't proven profitable.

[@plaidchuck]

Were the DC movies expected to do anything though? Anything before the official Gunn DC movies was already DOA. Marvels problem aside from quality is too many streaming shows diluting the brand. And also, at the end of the day this proves that only the big three heroes and their villains (Batman, Spiderman, Superman) can be relied on to consistently bring in some good money.

[@blupunk01]

@@plaidchuck Yeah, I mean Warner Bros. was kind of counting on Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom to pick up the slack because the first film was the highest-earning DCEU movie in international box office with $1.148 billion (overtaking Batman v. Superman's $873 million). It was a big gamble with a $200+ million budget and an untested lead, but it paid off and they were hoping to recreate that success.

[@skeleton_magic]

Then you have Madame Webb which flopped hard recently and pulled a Morbius.

[@supercoolbrian]

In my opinion, Marvel films were not so much a genre, but more like a single franchise, all culminating in the finale which was Avengers: End Game. That was the superhero finale the series needed. Asking for that kind of audience interest every year is not sustainable, so they more or less just made these movies while they were hot and are now going to have to downgrade. Nothing wrong with that. I just don't think you can make this kind of franchise in such a capacity indefinitely. You either need to downgrade or do something different and people are more or less tired of it at the moment. There might be revival, but my prediction is it wont be AntMan 4 or something that easily fits in their formula, because that formula that created the first 20+ Marvel films, has already reached its present climax. It's like expecting the Little Mermaid II to make as much money as the first.

[@Dock76]

It's so irritating that I have to criticize superhero movies. Some of them are among my favorite films. I never heard of westerns stopping Hitchcock from getting movies released in theaters.

[@southlondon86]

Yes because the movie star was a big draw back then.

[@southlondon86]

Sir you deleted your reply?

[@zeltzamer4010]

Except superhero movies are actually preventing other movies from getting released theatrically. How much of the general public would go to see an original IP in theatres nowadays?

[@chaost4544]

@@zeltzamer4010 it's not preventing big directors and writers from doing their own thing on streaming services.

[@hkr0065]

@@zeltzamer4010 Superhero movies arent doing it, the audiences are doing it to themselves. Put the blame on people, not superhero movies lol.

[@camillagilmore1547]

I think Multiverse of Madness was a really good example of the brand problem you were talking about. You'd get a really interesting, strange, imaginative scene and feel like "this is a Sam Rami film" and then the next scene would be so flat and formulaic and youd be like "oh yes, and now we are in a marvel film again".

[@Longlius]

Even as someone who likes schlocky genre fiction films, the dominance of Disney has been worrying for quite some time.

[@sentientmustache8360]

Yeah, hope the MCU finally declines to never rise again, so other movies and genres can have the spotlight

[@JayTechZM]

@@sentientmustache8360 not happening anytime soon

[@Nos7algiK]

@@sentientmustache8360 Won't happen and if it does happen Disney will be the one still bringing you that spotlight.

[@AS-ri1mb]

@@sentientmustache8360 want a tissue?

[@mistertoad1364]

@Snehil Shrey Most people enjoy mcu movies. Nobody should think they are masterpieces, but they have good qualities too. Why would you want it to fall and ruin other peoples fun? I hate transformers and fast and the furious, but I wont be going around wishing for those franchises to end.

[@WraxTV]

That story of Cleopatra being the highest grossing yet still failing reminds me A LOT of the gaming industry, especially since the PS360. Heard tons of stories of games selling ludicrous numbers yet still considered failures.

[@USERZ123XD]

gaming from most so-called "triple-a" studios are dominated with just sequels and reboots, however, because the cost of creating video games can vary hugely and the ability for smaller creators to put them on platforms like steam and social media is not as bad as film. you can literally just be a single person and make video game which is something a film cannot recreate.

[@cristianarreola8582]

It reminded me of the game industry too, specifically when Konami fired Hideo Kojima.

[@keiromultiverse3608]

@USERZ123 True. It’s honestly unfair if you ask me. Someone could release an 8 bit game with the jankiest animations and it would be a huge hit, but if someone releases an animation with still faces and moving mouths looking like it was from the ‘80s it would never get any views. Hopefully as A.I. and deepfake technology gets better, programs will come out where one person can make an amazing looking feature film by themself.

[@ShadowsofYesterday]

The story of Shenmue comes to mind. Apparently every single Dreamcast owner would have needed to buy two copies of the game in order for it to break even. It was meant to be a big mind-blowing "Yeah, we made that, what can we say except 'you're welcome'" title that would cement the Sega brand for a new generation, and they planned from the beginning to take a loss on the game itself to cash in big on the brand loyalty and console sales (today the big console giants do things the other way around, selling consoles at a huge loss and making their money back in games, much like what Sega did with the Genesis long before the Dreamcast). When the Dreamcast itself didn't perform anywhere near as well as they thought it would though, their plan of "taking a loss on the game" ended up backfiring hard.

[@YayaFeiLong]

@@keiromultiverse3608 Actually, filmmaking _has_ been getting easier in recent years (DaVinci Resolve is _free_ for heaven's sake), the trouble is film/animation in general is harder to monetize and harder to promote. Video games have Steam, a massive platform of over 120 million active users, where anyone can publish their own games for any price of their choosing. And for marketing you could email a bunch of small gaming KZbinrs asking if they can try your game until someone likes it enough to make a video on it. Original film/animation can't really do either of those things.

[@JonConstruct]

The part about brands being the main box office draw as opposed to genre or stars seems like fertile ground for an essay. The boom of reboots, remakes, and sequels have made stars of people but very rarely does that success translate outside the brand. RDJ could make Doolittle a hit. Chadwick Boseman was the face of a billion-dollar movie but 21 Bridges flopped. ScarJo couldn't get Rough Night over the hump. The only success I can think of is Chris Evans and Daniel Craig teaming up for Knives Out. Even Will Smith, the titan of the 2000s, is relegated as a leg for Suicide Squad and the Aladdin remake to stand on. This is a huge shift is how the film industry worked and how filmgoers related to movies. People went from debating the best Bruce Willis or John Wayne movie to debated the best Marvel or Fast and the Furious movie. Idk maybe that's something.

[@dionysus7045]

I don't know, maybe it also has to do something with the quality of a film. The plot needs to be enticing enough to lure in audiences. No one in the 21st-century is going over their heels to watch the new remake of Doolittle. Marketing also plays a huge part in this, the films you've mentioned are films most people haven't even heard of, and that has something to do with the extreme lack of marketing push from the studios. If 21 Bridges was actually pushed by the studios, and they knew how to utilize social media to promote their films, maybe it would've been a hit. And that's another point, movies stars haven't exactly used social media as a toolas efficiently as they can. Look at the music industry for a minute and you'll see that the musicians who promote themselves heavily on social media are the ones who sells the most compared to the ones who are inactive despite having good music. This applies to movie stars as well, they've been irrelevant in the internet age, which is a huge factor to why they're irrelevant. Generation Z didn't grew up watching their films, so of course they wouldn't be able to recognize them when they show up in the theatres. This leads to a huge divide, now Generation Z has been taught that cinema only offers brands and franchises, and this leads to a poor turnout of casual audiences, which then makes your movie flop. There's just a disconnect between the creators of the films and the consumers, if the two groups of people figure it out, then maybe a balance may be found.

[@isaacthomas6544]

Back in August Matt Damon was talking about this sort of thing in an interview and how superhero movies are built on characters vs actors. Everyone roasted him for it, as if he was bemoaning the death of white men leading movies, but like, he was right, lol. Nobody watches Marvel movies for the actors, they watch it for the characters, and if you're watching things for characters, who gives a fuck about anything else?

[@rahim6701]

@@isaacthomas6544 The titanic anticipation for and success of the newest Spider-Man movie has hinged so much on the fact that a very specific bunch of actors are reprising their specific iterations of the IP characters from the old movies. So I really wouldn´t frame it as characters vs actors that strictly. It´s more like "actor coalescing with their character" which on the one hand may lead to a even heavier form of typecasting than with actors who already only find work as one character archetype, but on the other hand, Marvel actors are very much cared about by the audience and can leverage the shit out of those roles. If anything, I´m actually worried that some of the actors that have played these superhero roles may be considered too invaluable and synonymous with their respective characters, and that in the coming decades, with Deepfake technology advancing further and further, whatever stories of - obvious examples - Iron Man, Wolverine or Captain America we get will still technically star Robert Downey Jr., Hugh Jackman and Chris Evans respectively, with the new writers and acting performers behind the characters being instructed to just mimic the original actors´ portrayals of the characters.

[@smarkhenry3165]

It’s the same thing Vince McMahon has tried to do to the pro wrestling industry. Devour every promotion he can globally while making sure nobody can become a mainstream star under his brand so the company itself is the draw. It’s capitalism in a nutshell. EA games did this with madden, fifa, and the nhl. Activision has done this with every franchise it’s ever owned, killing basically every last one of them besides call of duty and destiny.

[@Tyler_W]

@@dionysus7045 I think you've hit the nail on on head. Film studios either don't know how to properly market most of their stuff to their target audiences or deliberately don't care to do it much at all (and the fact that everything is being made to try to appeal to literally everybody at once is partially a problem as well). The only things that are well marketed are comic book films for whatever reason, which is precisely why everyone and their dog thinks comic book movies are all that come out anymore. It's not because that's true. They're a fraction of the totality of movies to release in a given year, even at their most numerous. People think this way because they're simply what gets the majority mindshare and biggest marketing. For a good while, you could've said the exact same thing about YA novel adaptations, but you don't see anyone claiming that or even complaining about it (even though arguably more YA novel films are bad than there are bad comic book films). They weren't being marketed and merchandised (or even talked about among moviegoers) everywhere like comic book films do. For better or worse and for whatever reason, they feel ever-present. The feeling if comic book movies being all that exists anymore is a matter of perception rather than reality. That being the case, it often feels like the people who complain about their clear popularity among general audiences comes off more like snobbishness and entitlement, as if people are offended that more people like things that they don't and just want to moan about it.

[@Pssybart]

If you look at the Wikipedia list of highest grossing movies of the 70's, the top 3 are Star Wars, Superman and Jaws. Sure, those are the same kinds of movies that dominate the market today. But back then they were isolated examples of genre blockbusters, and they're the exact movies film historians point at to show what killed New Hollywood in the first place. If you look at all the other highest grossing movies further down the list you'll get The Godfather, Grease, Animal House, Rocky, The Exorcist, Apocalypse Now, Alien, The Sting... And you know what movie made it to the top 10? Kramer vs. Kramer, a drama about a single father who fights for the custody of his kid. Yeah, that pretty much shows how different the 70's was from now. It was a short period in which filmmakers were allowed to experiment with a great variety of genres and with original screenplays. And as great as Star Wars, superman and Jaws are, they unfortunately revealed to studio's that certain formulas and intellectual properties can almost guarantee box office return.

[@zeltzamer4010]

Even though I’ve been watching Hollywood Renaissance movies for years, there is still something sort of unbelievably magical about the fact that there was once a time in film history where you could not only get an interesting no-name artsy American movie funded but also have it rake in money. Even the independent boom of the nineties seems impossible now.

[@speedracer1945]

Movies before Star Wars werent merited on box office but on Oscar's and quality. The only superhero type film to win Oscar was Joker but there is many war films and Westerns that did so too . The main genre that wins the most Oscar's is Dramas as you said Kramer vs Kramer .

[@Ruylopez778]

That's true, and while Star Wars and Jaws were using tropes for sure, it was still new, and expertly made. Superman was obviously an existing IP, but a finely crafted movie. Lucas had to fight hard to get Star Wars made - and Ladd was taking a risk on Lucas based on the success of American Graffiti. These days they take zero risk at all - unless you count adapting anime or computer games and making a horrible flop. Or rebooting an IP without giving any thought to why it was popular in the first place e.g. Terminator Dark Fate.

[@tylerm4405]

@@speedracer1945 Movies were also in theaters way longer too so word could spread and people could see it. The Godfather was in theaters for something like 7 months and spent 6 of those as the number one weekly box office draw. There will be blood averaged 6.4 weeks per theater

[@thomasknash]

@@speedracer1945 KRAMER VS. KRAMER also killed at the Box Office. Adjusted for inflation it made $363 million at the domestic box office. DOG DAY AFTERNOON made $304 million domestically adj. inflation. CABARET made $330 million domestically inflation adj. DELIVERANCE made $369 million domestically inflation adjusted. M*A*S*H made $489 million domestically adjusted for inflation. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOOS NEST & FIDDLER ON THE ROOF both made $504 million domestically adj. inflation.

[@jcmurie]

I think A24 might be one of the most important studios today. I'm not a die hard fan but I am interested in almost everything they put out. What I think is important, is that they are popularizing original indie films and I think studios will eventually recognize that people want original stories in addition to their blockbusters

[@initial_C]

So they're basically just a reboot of Miramax but without a sex pest at the helm (that we know of)

[@megaultradamn]

@@initial_C there's always a sexpest (it's Hollywood, baby!) It's only a matter of time....

[@rogoznicafc9672]

But they dont sadly. Most people you hear talking in the real world are always talking about shows. They only want things that are easy to watch, so shows which show always same thing so no need to really think about what to watch, just turn on something familiar

[@Jehty21]

@@rogoznicafc9672 It's easier to talk about shows than movies. With shows you can speculate about the future episodes. They also have more content or more topics to talk about. Also shows consume more time over a longer time frame. So just because you hear more talk about shows doesn't meant people don't watch movies. But anyways why do you think that watching shows is worse or inferior to movies??

[@nickyoude2694]

@@Jehty21 You've seen what garbage the BBC has been cranking out lately? The Repair Shop? Strictly? The soaps? Yet another miniseries adaptation of Great Expectations. Don't get me started on ITV, the only decent thing they have is Saturday Night Takeaway.

[@OldWitchDoctor]

I think the real issue is that studios have gotten bigger, I mean, look at Disney, they practically own most entertainment, and it's not like they will put out something that will compete with their own stuff. And honestly if we saw a shift to another popular genre, I'm honestly not sure that the same two or three companies still wouldn't conquer that genre too.

[@swanpride]

They are still smaller than Universal and Warner Bros, even with the merger, which frankly was necessary in order to stay competitive. Disney isn't the problem here. They do what they have to do to survive.

[@anvaryusupov8245]

@@swanpride Can you explain how is Disney smaller than WB or Universal? In what regards?

[@swanpride]

@@anvaryusupov8245 Both in movies released every year (last time I checked - which was admittingly pre-Covid - WB and Universal were releasing between 25 and 30 movies each year, sometimes up to 40, Disney even with Fox in the boat only does 20 to 25), seize of the companies and, maybe most important, the kind of business ventures covered. WB and Universal belong to groups which also control the internet, which poses the very real danger that they eventually use that power to influence streaming to their own advantage. Disney is the last of the major studio which is first and foremost and almost exclusively active in entertainment.

[@anvaryusupov8245]

@@swanpride But again, Disney is dominant on market. And that's the most important aspect. And one more thing. Number of released movies is not correct way of measuring size or power. Bollywood makes much more movies than Hollywood. But that doesn't mean anything. Because you should instead of quantity count the amount of money invested overall, and total income.

[@swanpride]

@@anvaryusupov8245 Disney is dominant on the market NOW. But this dominance is entirely dependent on the continuing success of their movies. Also, Bollywood doesn't release its movies internationally, but all Hollywood studios do, hence each Hollywood movie by a major studio has the same potential influence. Plus, total income is a terrible measure. What is better to make 300 million on a movie which cost 150 million, or to make 255 million on a 4.5 million budget? (And before you say that the latter doesn't happen, those are roughly the numbers of Get out).

[@pbh81]

Always thought zombie films especially the walking dead are more like western. In a way they are all about trying to be moral and the battle for civilization where all of society is on the fringe

[@br8745]

I think their is definitely a similarity, especially on the themes of rugged individualism, nature of good and evil, and a focus on small communities. Biggest difference seems to be that a western can more easily cross genres than zombies.

[@pbh81]

@@br8745 another theme is that the law is what you can enforce. 1 man and his gun

[@weirdy8]

@@br8745 They're also super cheap to make like Westerns. Heck the genre started off what's basically a microbudget indie film.

[@EyebrowCinema]

There's definitely something here. If Westerns are about taming the wilderness, zombie movies are debatably about the wilderness encroaching back into and undoing civilization.

[@wesstewart2677]

Please write your own video essay. I’d love to watch it! Can you please go further in depth as to why you think Westerns/Zombie flicks are inherently tied.

[@moonlight4665]

I think the shift to action/effects heavy blockbusters represents a change in people's general theater-going motivations. Not to add to the "controversy" but Scorsese was kind of right when he called those movies "theme-park rides", in the sense that the visual spectacle is the main (or a least a large part of) the draw. If you're going to actually *go* to a cinema, pay for each ticket, probably popcorn/other snacks as well, they have to offer an experience that you couldn't just get at home. Dramas, comedy, romance, etc play just as well on a TV screen as a theater screen.

[@starkingbiker]

i disagree. movies need the audience to be immersed and a drama/thriller/experimental film need your full attention for it to work fully. After all every film invites you to a new world. Comedies and Horror rely on the communal emotional reaction. Every film works simply much better on the big screen

[@ihateyoutube8789]

I don't think thats whats going on. I think what is it is theaters are controlled also. I've seen some great independent films I'd die to see on the big screen but they can't get there. I'd pay to watch a beautiful movie no matter what kind it was on the big screen...if I could.

[@InhabitantOfOddworld]

I don't think visual spectacle (at least, by itself) is what Scorsese meant when he compared these movies to theme-park rides. It also says a lot about how they are written, directed, produced, and released to audiences. Pardon the pun, but these films are certainly an "on rails" experience. Seldom any original storytelling, audiences are drawn in with the promise of some cheap thrill (or in the case of NWH recently, riding hard on nostalgia) that ends much as it began. This is most obvious looking at footage of (primarily American) audiences. Whooping at the highs, gasping at the lows. These films signpost a lot in a very unsophisticated manner, and the audience reacts like Pavlov's dogs after being conditioned to do so after 20 odd years of blockbuster schlock. In the words of Red Letter Media, consume product and get excited for next product.

[@tellemstevedave5559]

The Irishman and Roma were amazing in theaters and barely hold people's attention at home.

[@stannisthemannis8694]

Totally agree also these troupes that play itself means people are likely to come back if you don't like what's on TV you can change channel or binge something else movies once you've payed that's it if you don't like it then you're fucked

[@They_are_Arthur]

Ironically enough, I feel like the cultural shift between Westerns and high action (Superhero) movies was met in 1977 with Star Wars. Star Wars was kind of like a western in space, but it also had spectacular special effects (and was later used for a lot of marketing). The original Star Wars trilogy is almost entirely responsible for big franchise blockbuster films with high octane action, and Star Wars slowly shifted from being seen as a legitimate piece of art crafted by filmmakers and turned into a brand instead. Granted though I really love Star Wars but it speaks to how infectious brand loyalty can dominate Hollywood (and in the worst possible scenario, bringing that brand to Dinsey's blackhole).

[@joseloayza502]

It's a wuxia of superheroes

[@alexo_pog]

empire strikes back (1980) is also responsible for the birth of *respected* sequel-ing and how we see it today (and for the idea of making a vast cinematic universe), its weird but it was quite the unusual thing for a movie to be a successful continuation of the story and even top the predecessor in respect, before that, making sequels was seen as a cash grab (like a knockoff) rather than a way to expand the story star wars has truly had one of the biggest impacts on our filmmaking

[@Jiji-the-cat5425]

Too add to your point, sci-fi as well in those days was also seen as like a B-Movie type thing. Cheesy goofy throw-away stuff. Like flying saucers, monsters, aliens, that sort of thing. By the 1960's the sci-fi market was certainly improving and becoming much more serious, but it was still usually earth based in some way shape or form. Like 2001: A Space Odyssey is a great film, it's high-budget and cinematic, but the story was not much different from pretty much all other sci-fi stories at the time (it was based off a book) and while it paved the way for Cinemascope style sci-fi, it still wouldn't be as revolutionary as Star Wars. Star Wars on the other hand did something new. It combined several elements; westerns, high fantasy, sci-fi, and WWII films, and combined it all into something new and captivating, something nobody had ever seen before. A completely new and unknown universe to the viewer.

[@They_are_Arthur]

@@Jiji-the-cat5425 Even to this day Star Wars content still has that infectious "beyond this world" quality to it, even in a sea of so many more fantasy stories. Like when I go from watching something like the Clone Wars or the Mandalorian to watching anything else, my mind has to adjust to seeing normal life on the screen again.

[@Jiji-the-cat5425]

@@They_are_Arthur Agree. It really masters the "out of this world" feel. You have to like take a sec to adjust to the real world after watching.

[@four-en-tee]

"There are some consistent points. Jessie James is always an outlaw. Billy the kid is always defined by his youth." The Man With No Name is always played by Clint Eastwood.

[@bruceleeds7988]

It's funny, three years ago they said covid and netflix will kill cinema. Now they all want their little soap opera dramas on the big screen 🤣🤣

[@filmfanaticryan156]

Hear me out: Superhero movies (and television shows) are more comparable to Japan's boom of "Tokusatsu" (special effects driven) projects from the 50's well into the late 70's (and somewhat still today). And I'm not talking about actual thematic similarities. It is almost always based in an economic perspective for profitable means (selling toys comes to mind). I've always likened Westerns to Samurai films as they are so reflective of each other; grounded in the framework of a country's history and especially mythos. I think most people generalize their Superhero = Western argument based purely around genre filmmaking and don't care to elaborate. I agree with a lot of the ground covered in the essay. The box office analysis is exact. I just think it's worth a look into the history of Tokusatsu projects in Japan. While not anywhere near as prolific as Disney has been, Toho dominates a lot of the Japanese movie markets.

[@ratlinggull2223]

I read that as tonkatsu. I am really hungry.

[@deadaccountlol9189]

Oh no, I completely agree with that sentiment. Especially with how many kaiju movies were made around that time just by Toho studios alone.

[@twilightsparkle2764]

@@deadaccountlol9189 Riderman on you pfp, nice!

[@pyroshell5652]

I'm so glad you mentioned this take, I hadn't thought of that. Especially since the comment above you mentions that Samurai films are more comparable to Westerns than Superhero films are.

[@niktri8312]

On the bright side of things, as homogenized as mainstream cinema seems to be, the complete opposite happens over on streaming platforms, Netflix especially. Though the quality is often debatable, I think it's really telling that the top five shows currently are Squid Game, Bridgerton, Money Heist, Stranger Things and the Witcher, shows that belong to entirely different genres and have almost nothing to do with each other stylistically or thematically. Even more impressive is the fact that Squid Game and Money Heist aren't even made in the US, and yet they managed to reach such a wide audience, signifying that, while Disney might have a stranglehold over current cinema, the same can't be said of Netflix, where it seems like almost any creator with any budget is given at the very least a fair chance. Not only that, but they're much more open to different ideas, which creates other problems such as overreliance on fast and cheap content, but can also lead to out-of-the-box masterpieces like Bojack Horseman and Arcane

[@starkingbiker]

i dont care about tv at all. i love the cinema above anything, it’s my safespace, i cant imagine to just watch superhero movies in the cinema. depressing

[@abhaydath3996]

Why are old farts, always so stubborn? Nobody is holding a gun to your head old timer, non-superhero movies are still released in cinema.

[@niktri8312]

@@abhaydath3996 Dude, did you not just watch the video? It's not about if there are other movies that come out, it's about if these movies even have a fighting chance at a lifespan. West Side Story barely lasted two weeks before it got pulled from theaters. Granted, part of that was due to the pandemic, but if a Steven Spielberg movie can't even hope to compete, things are looking grim

[@abhaydath3996]

@@niktri8312 I was addressing starking biker

[@starkingbiker]

@@abhaydath3996 im 25 and what you say is true but these films are getting smaller and smaller releases and not shown outside big cities

[@namtran8186]

I think it’s a great thing to note that criticism of the superhero films should be less on whether they’re considered “artistic” or not and more on the monopoly large corporations have over cinema.

[@anthonyfernandez82]

Yep. Attacking these movies will just stop people from even considering your side

[@Hyperversum3]

@@anthonyfernandez82 Not that any change is possible. The only vote avaiable here is with your wallet

[@grimfin3214]

@Snehil Shrey Why would anyone listen to you when you’re this bitter?

[@shahood8116]

@Snehil Shrey those movies don't appeal to people because they are made for autistic niches

[@anatomicalvenus]

@Snehil Shrey Bro I hate the MCU and I wouldn't even watch these if you're gonna talk like that. The best way to reach these people and get them to diversify their tastes is to be passionate about the films you like so people are excited to watch them. If you're condescending like that people are just gonna assume that you're pretentious.

[@leonarddillon256]

If anything, the only other genre that's similar to Westerns are Samurai films from Japan. Countles scholars have analyzed the comparisons and how both genres took too many inspirations from each other as contemporaries that it's only cultural, asthetics, and location that's the only difference. Western film director's have given gifts to Akira Kurosawa for taking his storytelling style and many Samurai films unapologetically take the "Lone Stranger" trope facing the adversity of evil people taking control of lawless lands. Superheroes films are only being compared to Westerns based on the plethora of films chasing a trend in modern day as opposed to old-fashioned cinema years. My feelings of the superhero genre being compared to Westerns is definitely mutual in this video.

[@existo_mas_nao_penso]

"The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" for instance, was based on a japanese samurai film, that i unfortunately can't remember the name off, which had a similar plot to the Hateful Eight, with the three characters meeting during a storm and tensions rising between them.

[@JonConstruct]

@@existo_mas_nao_penso I think you're thinking of A Fistful of Dollars being based on Yojimbo by Akira Kurosawa. Another Kurosawa film, Seven Samurai, got remade into The Magnificent Seven.

[@existo_mas_nao_penso]

@@JonConstruct didn't know about that one, pretty interesting

[@PhilipAJones]

That and some "post apocalyptic" films. I've heard Mad Max is a western with cars.

[@swanpride]

There is also a not so small subset of science fiction which is basically a western in another visual...see Star Trek or, even more obvious, Firefly.

[@mafeuk]

Comic book movies are here to stay, I just hope they move on from superheroes to focus on different stuff like horror. Like what happened on the 1970s when comics started focusing more on horror and the supernatural.

[@EyebrowCinema]

I'd certainly be interested in a wave of EC comics adaptations.

[@thomasknash]

So you’re idea of diversity will be Werewolf by Night along with Spider-Man? Doesn’t that fit his “just another flavor of coke or Pepsi” critique?

[@atlroxmysox98]

You know what I would be down for that, along with more narratively diverse movies that have nothing to do with fucking comic books. Nothing against them or the people who enjoy them, I just don’t care about them.

[@dado380]

Don't forget tht back in the day Conan saved Marvel when they struggled in 60s and according to R. E Howard Conan was heavily influenced by westerns.

[@xm_heecka.laddder.job_mx5962]

They will still stay CB movies if they move to horror and the supernatural, according to your logic in the last part

[@jmn327]

This is a really, really interesting essay, and I hope more people see it. The "superheroes are like any other genre" argument has never made much sense to me, but as an amateur in the cinephile space (took some classes, never studied *that* deeply) I've often had a hard time enunciating what doesn't work about that take. This really seems to nail it. For me, what's really stood out in modern times is the death of the "middle class" of movies. We still get some quasi-indie content that studios are ok distributing given how cheaply they can be made, we get the gigantic blockbusters, but the days of mid-budget comedies, family films, dramas, etc. making an impact on the popular imagination seems buried. Maybe this is due to theater tickets becoming increasingly expensive and people only wanting to spend their cinema dollars on films that "need big screen presentation", but it's not as if people didn't have cable and TVs to watch back in the 80s and 90s, too. The other part is the really creepy aspect of "branding" that you discuss. It's crazy to think, but a film like the original Star Wars, or something like Back to the Future likely would have no prayer of being made today: high concept escapist fare that isn't based on a pre-existing IP, and in many cases is an original creation for the silver screen. Naturally, Disney and Universal are happy to leverage those brands in today's toy and nostalgia markets, but they'd never greenlight them in today's film market. Where this really goes off the rails is when we then have, for lack of a better term, "stans" for billion dollar corporations. It kind of pains me to see people who in many walks of their life would condemn such concentration and monopolization going on in an industry shouting down wider criticism of trends like, for example, Disney's gradual takeover of the box office via studio acquisitions. One is welcome to enjoy a MCU movie, for example, while hopefully still acknowledging the potentially dark road this is leading us down.

[@TheBlueLink3]

I think movies like “Back To The Future” could still be made today. I’m not sure how well it would do comparatively though.

[@jmn327]

@@TheBlueLink3 It could be made, but I just really doubt a major studio would green light it and then get behind it the way Universal did in the 80s, with heavy promotion and pushing it as a potential marquee title. I feel like it'd get shuffled off to a streaming service and treated like an oddball sci-fi/comedy that would hopefully get a cult following, but obviously that's just speculation on my part.

[@SKULLKR3W]

youre forgetting the fact that tons of people have huge ass tvs and really good sound systems why go to the movies whne you can watch most stuff at home on 4k and hang out with your dog back in the day the only way to see movies was to go to a theater or catch a rerun on tv if youre lucky streamiing has changed the movie landscape far more than any superhero movie ever did

[@TheBlueLink3]

@@jmn327 That's fair.

[@raogzero1842]

@@SKULLKR3W I think this is more the point than anything else, same way how videogame consoles had an affect on arcade scene in america, I think the streaming market is changing our relationship with the movies.

[@ghastlyghandi4301]

When people say: ‘[genre] movies are so annoying, they are like the western genre.’ They’re basically using the western genre as a way of saying that ‘I want these movies I don’t like to die out’.

[@jsw973]

If a genre dying is what it takes to stop Disney's monopoly over the market, then sure. I wish superhero movies die out.

[@Rishi123456789]

@@jsw973 Based. Fuck Disney.

[@remyhavoc4463]

​@@jsw973 probably doesn't Disney has made many movies that are different genres The only real difference is that they will always have kids as a target Audience even if they're making films that are also for adults

[@aaronstark5060]

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting movies I don’t like to die out when, as has been illustrated here and several other places, said movies have an absolute stranglehold on the market the detriment of pretty close to everything else.

[@sildaz]

Good analysis. While we can't predict how this will effect the future of cinema, monopolies and the cultural dominance of one type of film are never a good thing

[@Michael_ORourke]

I wonder if it'll get to a point when it collapses into itself, when we get the 20th Spider-Man movie or the 23rd Batman film, and people just don't care anymore. I think a franchise like the MCU gives the illusion of diversity of genres. They can make an outer space adventure film, a heist movie about shrinking people, or a kung-fu fantasy movie, but make them with the same basic "template". There may reach a point when people get tired of that template, but we'll see.

[@sildaz]

@@Michael_ORourke I personally think It will collapse when they can carry the weight of expectations. Yeah they managed to do It in NWH but it took the lore of 20 years. Who knows, some say the end of the world will reach before the ending of capitalism

[@gabbar51ngh]

@@Michael_ORourke people didn't get tired of James bond or Sherlock Holmes being overplayed so I doubt spiderman or Batman are going away. Also they don't give the illusion of being diverse, they are indeed diverse which is why they are so successful & others aren't.

[@jmn327]

@@gabbar51ngh But to the point of the video, while James Bond is a highly successful franchise dating back to the 1960s, "Bond" is not itself an entire genre that's come to dominate the box office. At most it's a franchise that produces one film every handful of years and has seen some pretty wild swings in tone depending on the era and lead actors involved, while in a single years we'll usually end up with the top ten box office films being superhero-based. It's not to say one is superior to the other, but they're very different.

[@gabbar51ngh]

@@jmn327 neither is Batman or Spiderman. Not all of their movies have been successful either. You do know their movies existed before the MCU, right? The video loses validity when he starts to list or add non Superhero Movies into it just because they are set up as big blockbuster films. If that's the case he should simply blame George Lucas & Spielberg for making movies like Star Wars & Jaws , turning Hollywood into what it is now. Plus I don't see the problem of people watching these films if they want to. We already had dozen of other non Superhero films throughout the decades & a lot of them were outright garbage too. The entire 2000s is filled with unnecessary rom coms literally repeating the same story. Just take a look at "No strings attached" & "Friends with benefits". It's obvious people are less interested in that & with advanced filmmaking technology people want to see more than what's already been made. We never really had cinema explore concepts like MCU has been doing while spinning it all in a single connected story. Plus there's tonnes of Superheroes in the public domain other studios can use anytime. No one's forcing anyone to watch Marvel only. MCU simply has a better connected cinematic universe which pulls everyone in. WB could have easily made a good Superhero universe with Batman & Superman leading the way but they botched it. They only have themselves to blame here. The top ten films being Superhero shows how effective they are at pulling everyone in & not boring people to death. Maybe other filmmakers should try that instead of complaining people losing interest in their films.

[@TdF_101]

I don't have a problem with the superhero having a 'cultural mainstream dominance', as long as I have a variety of films to chose from when I am buying my movie ticket. Same principle with music and radios generally pushing the same artists and the pop genre more than a wide variety. I can still choose. But since the restrictions what has bothered me is that indeed more often the movies that get to the theaters are ones backed by huge studios and that are in the mainstreams genres (superhero/action) while the rest are lost in the sea of streaming.

[@legopeterparker3419]

I couldn’t have said it better myself

[@HaIsKuL]

The Mandalorian actually is a western by design, when said by Favreau trying to create the plot. It's a hero coming to town with his own goals, finds a problem the town has, solves the problem, progresses in some way towards his goal, then moves to another town and does it all over again.

[@cookieface80]

Refer back to his criticism of Joker.

[@HaIsKuL]

@@cookieface80 It seems more like that particular criticism is with regards to the supposed requirement of any novel or mature groundbreaking storytelling plot to have an already-established setting, characters, and lore, not necessarily the "formula" of a western plot, for example.

[@kevinoconnor4245]

...seems like just more "Star Wars" to me...

[@jayguero2123]

And then for its second season split into 3 different spin off shows. Just like Marvel has been doing since 2008.

[@ShogunLazo]

Dude the original SW always had a western feel to it

[@enigmaodell6806]

What’s weird is that superhero comics can be pretty different. A noir mystery, psychological thriller, over the top brawl, speculative fiction, or buddy comedy.

[@tomlangford1999]

Really glad this video touched on the economic reasons behind this trend rather than just bashing the people who watch superhero films

[@McLarenMercedes]

By that rationale the ever increasing levels of *obesity* in adults (and a worrying numbers of kids) and the billions the fast food franchises are making annually can just as well be justified with "economic reasons" ? There are "economic reasons" for wars too you know. Fact is that it's usually the *main reason* . Does that mean we should all just accept it? Not worry unless we're directly affected or on the receiving end? Dumping toxins from factories into rivers and lakes is a lot cheaper than neutralizing it by chemical processes (expensive). Heck if we allowed to be remain unchecked like in the past we'd be living in toxic waste dump by now. See what happens when you think that "economic reasons" is justification? And with myriads of *accountants* being in charge you'd better be worried you're getting the best product.

[@Woodsaras]

These rubes deserve bashing any day of the weak

[@tomlangford1999]

@@McLarenMercedes You're confusing justification of a trend with understanding why that trend happens. Understanding economic reasons behind anything enables us to do something about them, while simply saying "people who do x are bad" and leaving it at that is overly simplistic and entirely unhelpful to solving the problem.

[@GameGuruNT]

This was a good video. I do feel that people who are vocal about their dislike of superhero movies are more specifically people who dislike the MCU in particular. The thing is that Marvel Studios is good at consistently making crowd-pleasing movies to the point where the general audience will go to watch a Marvel Studios film without knowing much about the featured superhero or superhero team of the film. Outside of the Hulk and Spider-Man, none of the characters who Marvel Studios had a hand in making movies of were their A-Listers at the time their first MCU films was made. This trend of Marvel making their characters relevant to the general audience with crowd-pleasing films began with Iron Man and continued all the way up to Shang-Chi & the Eternals. The brand loyalty that Marvel has engendered with the general audience seems to actually be with Marvel Studios itself, not individual Marvel superheroes. Marvel Studios can make any of their superheroes work whereas even closest competitor DC has only really focused on their A-Listers, especially Batman and his related characters like Joker and Harley Quinn. I feel like that is a possible point left out of the success of the superhero film genre.

[@swanpride]

Frankly, that was Disney's way of doing things from the get go. They always sold animated movies based on the fact that they were DISNEY movies. There is nothing really new about the approach to make people more loyal to the brand than to specific actors or directors. Warner Bros. always preferred the Director approach, btw.

[@markmolino679]

It's not like people dislike the MCU for disliking sake.It's that of recent the MCU films has become repetitive with their formula .Added to that with their woke messaging has affected their films tremendously as we could see with Black Widow and The Eternals flopping .

[@GameGuruNT]

@@swanpride I never really thought about that before, but your comparison with Disney's animated films is absolutely spot on. It is a very Disney way of making films.

[@swanpride]

@@GameGuruNT It is. And, like I mentioned, making a big deal around the director is a very Warner Thing to do. It's basically just a different approach of marketing. Though you could the Disney approach also call the Producer approach...they like to have their Walt Disneys, Lassiters and Feiges being the "face" of success.

[@Tyler_W]

@@markmolino679 I think you're partially right. That is to say that I think you're mostly right, but with an asterisk. There are definitely those who simply hate on Marvel Studios because they're snobs who don't like that general audiences enjoy such "low brow" entertainment that they don't. Meanwhile, others who dislike Marvel for the wokeness who have devolved into mindless tribalism no different than their opponents (not to use the "both sides are just as bad" fallacy which I don't think is true), resulting in them simply hating on it purely because it comes from Marvel Studios and calling it egregiously woke even when it isn't because that's what their tribe is "supposed" to say, and because Marvel Studios sometimes violates their pet peeves, they are therefore obligated to tribally nitpick it to death and levy dishonest criticism out of a sense of tribal obligation. With that said, I'm with you on believing that too much of the MCU movies lately have been playing it too safe and that there's too much concern with virtue signaling "the Message" over actually trying to tell an entertaining story with engaging characters, but I absolutely think that there are those on my/our "side" (for lack of a better word) that absolutely deserve criticism no different than the wokeists do.

[@valgorie1811]

Maybe in the 2030s, there could be revisionist superhero films, when characters like Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, the Flash, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Captain America go public domain.(though they should've gone public domain in the 1990s, and would be if Disney didn't change copyright laws).

[@robertdullnig3625]

Idk, you might get a lot of stuff that is the equivalent of Sony's Venom movies, where most people are aware they are not "real" Marvel movies.

[@Dave102693]

Or just edgey pisstake versions of those characters first.

[@8bitdiedie]

Part of me just thinks that’s awful. Every other shitty corporation will try their own hand at soulless superhero films. Many of them may ruin the legacy of that hero in some people’s eyes (maybe). If anything, Superhero films could “die out” because of the sheer confusion and controversy many of those films would create over the characters. It could also create a lot of indie gold, don’t get me wrong, and some of it could “reinvent” the genre successfully. But I imagine the unlikable/controversial films will get the same/even more attention and cause people to look at the genre as a whole more bitterly/cynically. It can be difficult for “good films” to promote their genre when it has an over-saturation of sub-par or actively shitty films constantly tainting the genre’s reputation (same reason a lot of people don’t take the horror or action genres seriously to this day, and supero films are already too close to that territory as it is).

[@8bitdiedie]

Also, on that note, say what you will about copyright laws (I heavily dislike them too), but at least owning a media property allows its characters to develop/keep a somewhat-consistent identity that audiences feel invested in. That’s technically possible with non-copyright owned properties too, but it’s difficult to ignore the lack of investment copyright-free characters seem to generate in film audiences nowadays. I imagine perhaps it’s because the identity and narrative of a non-copyrighted character loses its consistency the more appropriated it becomes, leading to a very “surface-level” idea of who that character is in the average person’s mind. This allows them to still be recognizable as vague pop-cultural symbols, but fails to make people feel “close” to said character since that very appropriation “de-humanizes” them as symbols or ideas rather than “actual characters” (in the eyes of modern audience sensibilities). By that I mean how modern audiences tend to see “interesting characters” not as vague symbols but as intimate, consistent and “humanized” people, all of which are aspects of non-copyrighted characters that tend to become diluted over time. When was the last time modern audiences seemed to feel genuine excitement for, and/or a connection to, characters like King Arthur or Frankenstein in films? Probably because their pop cultural perception makes them seem too loose and vague to care about, and fails to inform audiences on the better-defined narratives/personalities the character might’ve had at some point And yeah, superheroes definitely also fit into a lot of this already, having numerous different interpretations of them out there and many being pop cultural symbols of sorts. But even then most superheroes still have a number of important signature qualities that their companies expect to be kept consistent in nearly all official versions of the character. These aren’t just “superficial” qualities like their design/imagery, but also the qualities that had evoked people’s emotional/intellectual investment for them in the first place. This allows audiences to still feel a softly-consistent sense of connection to the character that is shared across nearly all their different versions.

[@goodmind4940]

@@8bitdiedie we still got last jedi luke in copyright-owned property

[@myanrueller91]

The dominance of Disney extends beyond the movies that get released. Their movies sell tickets. But I've heard consistently that Disney places extreme measures on how a theater can run their movies including what screens they run on and for how long. Movie theaters are forced to comply with these demands because these movies sell tickets. It strangles the market for movie goers wanting to see something else. Even Dune, arguably the biggest non superhero movie of the past few years, only had 2 weeks in IMAX in the US before a Marvel movie took its place in IMAX screenings. It's a virtual vertical monopoly on film, and virtually no other medium is like it. In games, you have big budget titles and the annual franchise releases to be sure, but because a game can be made by anyone with enough knowledge and patience, you can have breakout hits from small or solo developers like Undertale, Stardew Valley, or Hollow Knight. Books have major bestsellers that dominate the market sure, but any one with patience and time can write a book. Movies are so collaborative, and delivery of film is controlled by so few companies that it's really hard to become the next Spielberg or Ridley Scott, whose early work defined not only blockbusters, but in some cases, film itself (Alien, Blade Runner, and Jaws all come to mind). Even if you were to create a film on your own, your options for delivery are incredibly limited, and if you go with the obvious choice, KZbin, you are at the mercy of the algorithm instead of the quality of your content and story. And that's nothing to say for what is effectively one major company controlling the medium does to the language of the medium as a whole on every level of production.

[@legrandliseurtri7495]

That's not something I really thought of, but you're right, the reason why the film industry always seems to favor big companies taking over is because of it's collective nature. You simply can't do a movie alone, or at least it would a pretty boring.

[@saniakshay12]

In india there was one small cinema owner who refused to show Endgame because the distributors wanted him to charge 100inr (1.5usd appx) more per ticket. They finally let the cinema hall charge regular price.

[@miz4535]

And it will happen again with part 2. For the marvels whose trailer looks like an advert.

[@ZaZaTofuHumperdink]

Westerns were also taken much more seriously as art by contemporary audiences and critics - they were regularly nominated for Best Picture as the Oscars, whereas recently box office results have almost entirely diverged from awards recognition.

[@Cyclone1293]

Only 3 westerns ever won best picture. And 2 of those Unforgiven and Dances with Wolves were both in the 90s, which is waaaay outside of the years of Western’s dominance. They were nominated frequently, but they rarely ever won.

[@colliric]

That's less to do with the superhero movies and more to do with how the Academy Awards have debased themselves, only ever award Arthouse films anything now, lost their ratings over the years and drifted into irrelevancy. That's a different video altogether.

[@Tolstoy111]

@@colliric Do you think anything isn't a franchise film is "arthouse"?

[@colliric]

@@Tolstoy111 no, but it's a fact the majority of Best Picture winning films from the last 12 or so years have been niche Arthouse films with limited box office returns.

[@Tolstoy111]

@@colliric Only franchise films have extensive box office returns in the last twelve years.

[@johnterpack3940]

Looking at the fact that everything Disney has released in the past few months has flopped, I think the end is nigh. Granted, some of the flops aren't official yet, but the writing is on the wall.

[@pandastical9205]

I’d love a video about wtf happened to musical movies. Like they seem to have been so dominant but now just seem rarer and rarer in comparison

[@GoofballLOL]

One of the most, if not THE most, well-articulated, well-researched, and thorough/comprehensive video essays I've ever seen. Incredibly compelling and informative -- nicely done

[@themovieaudiomashupproject18]

Just this morning I had this discussion with one of my friends on this topic and now you have upload this. 10/10 for Timing. The video is interesting and well made. Great take!

[@EyebrowCinema]

I remember sitting in bed about a month and a half ago thinking this would be a good topic and literally the next day the argument was stirred up yet again on twitter. Felt like a sign.

[@themovieaudiomashupproject18]

@@EyebrowCinema After watching this video I can confirm it was a sign.

[@senister14]

@@EyebrowCinema I would compare the superhero movies to the horror movies of the 80s.

[@jwnj9716]

Indeed. Hell, John Carpenter films have more Western elements in them. Even in interviews guys like Carpenter or Walter Hill love to talk about Westerns and how much fun it is to make one. Superhero films are okay. Its just that I'm burned out. I'm just gonna check out Spiderman because of the nostalgia.

[@Tyler_W]

Personally, I think the biggest way to avoid burnout is to simply watch a wider variety of movies. Expand your cinematic diet, so to speak. Go back to older movies you haven't seen that attract your interest. Although I definitely have issues with comic book films, I still greatly enjoy many of them and want to see them improve and succeed (when they're good amd deserve the success, just like how I feel about every other movie). I'm a comic book geek, so the source of my love and frustration with them ironically come from the same place. I want more, and I want more of them to be great, but with that said, "superhero films," although the films I most consistently see in theaters upon release, are not the majority of all of the films that I see in a given year. I like films from various genres, both "popcorn flicks" and meatier fare alike.

[@Axl4325]

I´m also burned out of superhero films and the last one I watched before spiderman was Eternals (and that one sucked) but the last spiderman film was excellent, and unlike the other marvel films, had many unexpected moments

[@Axl4325]

@Coffee Lantern The new Spiderman film was really good for me, I have watched the first 2 films with Tom Holland and they were pretty generic actually but still enjoyable enough to watch once at the cinema, but the last one was way better than the first two and in my opinion did justice to Peter Parker as a character in the new era of marvel films. It´s not to the level of something like Logan but it is certainly really good. Nice that you mention the Tobey/Sam Raimi films, I grew up with those and loved how the plot revolved both around Spiderman the superhero and Peter the regular man, this one did something very similar which I liked, the ending even does a direct reference to Spiderman 3 which in my opinion was very well deserved for the direction the film took

[@Ignasimp]

@Coffee Lantern i mean, I really liked Logan, but I don't see how it is that great of a film. I don't see how Logan is a better film than Infinity War, for example. Just because a film is a blockbuster doesn't mean it's not greatly written. I don't think Logan even comes close to First Class or Day's of future past.

[@jamesanderson5658]

As a consumer, I think the business move of the MCU effectively operating like a TV show has a dramatic impact. I'm so invested I risked covid to see Spiderman after not going to theaters for literal years.

[@parrot998]

Yeah. I think people prefer continuous stories nowadays, and this is a fact that Disney has taken advantage of, but no one else has caught onto. That you have to build a continuous narrative in order to build an audience share, and in the process, the inevitable TVification of film...

[@DeBean970]

@@parrot998 Though there's a problem with continous narratives. Most series that last decades will stagnate and lose its soul so it can go on forever/as long as possible. The only exception I can think of is One Piece but that series has an end goal.

[@parrot998]

@@DeBean970 A series only stagnates if the creators aren't brave enough to keep trying new things or to do broad upsets of the status quo every once and a while. If they resign to a series as complete in terms of ideas and characters and themes... Compare something like The Simpsons or the Star Wars films to Star Trek or Doctor Who. The former series are terrified of doing anything new and it has ruined them. The latter series refuse to stay still and have managed to get over 50 years of content for it. Not all of it good, but not in consistant decline either... Mind you, Star Trek may not be the fairest example since it is technically several series that share the same universe, but I think it counts because most of them follow the same basic concept, just with their own unique take. If The Simpsons decided like a decade and a half ago to time jump and shift to the children's adulthood, would it be nearly as dull as it is? And if people didn't immediately reject the prequels, and then Rian Johnson's subversion of Star Wars tropes, do you think that series of films would be so incapable of moving forward? Of course it isn't exactly a simple clear cut thing. As I just pointed out, fan backlash combined with spineless backtracking sunk that ship... And then if you have something with a heavy action focus like with Shonen Anime, power creep becomes a real issue to deal with... But if you stop trying to change your series, that's when the rot sets in...

[@ZeroKitsune]

@@parrot998 ...well Star Trek and Doctor Who aren't great examples either because fans of both widely consider them to both be terrible right now, so it remains to be seen if their decline is only temporary or not.

[@parrot998]

@@ZeroKitsune The Chibnall era of Doctor Who was bad, but it was pretty predictable since he made some mediocre DW before he came in charge. Regardless, he's gone so the show has a chance to reinvent itself again. Meanwhile the current era of Star Trek had a rocky start, but has been getting consistantly better every single year. to the point that now it is basically on par with 90's Trek for the most part. Of course, this doesn't stop the everpresent bad faith arguments about anything new "going woke" esp in long established sci-fi series in spite of the fact almost all sci-fi has copious amounts of political commentary and always has... And this will always distort the perception of actual fans' feelings on a work. But regardless, even a bad spell in a series like these can only ever be temporary as writers and characters and plot focus change. The constant influx of new blood means it can't really stagnate for long.

[@maxwellmueller9384]

Dude, "What do you think of Marvel movies?" is my first screening question in dating.

[@Ruylopez778]

The 'modern myth' tag is quite interesting. If we think of the original Star Wars trilogy as the 'modern myth' juggernaut (and there were plenty at the time complaining about it) it now seems quaint in comparison. Yes, there were re-releases and so much merch, but three films; '77, '80 and '83. That's it. And then a 16 year wait for another trilogy. Fast forward to the modern day, and Disney "acquires" the "IP" and immediately sets in motion *a movie a year* of regurgitated slop. And when Solo flopped, they prepared for firing out "content" on Disney+

[@nickhueper2906]

Mandalorian was good tho

[@SkellyJBones]

Disney was going for streaming regardless of the success of a spinoff movie, and I doubt they ever thought Solo was going to break the box office or do well anyway.

[@Ruylopez778]

@@SkellyJBones I don't remember saying or implying that Disney wasn't going to push hard on streaming or not make MCU and SW shows. I was saying that Disney don't know and/or don't care what SW fans want, or even how to handle SW and most of their content is throwing stuff at a wall and seeing if it sticks. And I was making a comparison between how a franchise was handled in different periods of history. TFA over performed. RO over performed considering it was the first spin off movie. TLJ underperformed for a saga movie. Solo LOST money and that is as far from 'breaking the box office' as you can get. So please, don't downplay how much a of an *utter failure* Solo or TROS was, because I'm not interested. And don't act like Solo was not part of a trend of the Disney SW strategy failing, while the MCU was still pushing out several movies a year, and breaking records doing it. Once The Mandalorian was a success (for doing many of the things that the previous Disney movies *didn't do* ) projects that were already in development for the big screen (Obi-Wan, Solo/RO prequel shows set in the time period between PT and OT that would have been the Solo sequels, and a Boba Fett underworld story) were announced as Disney+ content. None of these announced shows were new ideas. They were all going to be spin off movies or sequels.

[@gusmackenzie2361]

The difference is that no superhero movie will have a title as wild as “Duck you Sucker”

[@DrGregoryHouseIT]

The original title is actually Giù La Testa, 'Put Your Head Down' in english.

[@GrosvnerMcaffrey]

fist full of dynamite is another title

[@leaffinite3828]

Honestly feel like the differences between superheros and westerns have more to do with the huge difference between the 50s and 2010s than anything inherent to the films

[@ShawHortonMusic]

That’s one thing I loved so much about Solo. It’s one of those big-budget, effects-driven films, based on an IP now owned by Disney, but at its core, it’s not just your average modern blockbuster. It’s a space western about a young gunslinger, in the form of a Star Wars film. Just look at the third act. It’s not a big action spectacle with stuff falling from the sky. It’s a few people in a room, fighting it out, followed by a one-on-one gun duel. And of course… that movie unfortunately underperformed at the box office.

[@Joe-sr6de]

The way you described it is good, but ultimately the movie failed because it was poorly made and not a good movie

[@TheMadalucard]

My supeficial thoughts on this is that a better comparison would be westerns to horror movies, who similarly have a low floor of production costs and are open to both wide experimentation and genre convention. While I havent checked any numbers, it feels like horror movies are also talked about in similar terms when it comes to decades of dominance, as well as styles shifting and in cases becoming introspective/self-aware. Edit: Also to note is theres a parallel of Italian made western movies gaining their own fame and distinct style partially because of the ease of production, to regional subgenres of horror movies including the Italians once again with Giallo, but also in other parts of the world.

[@rgreenberg35]

Most westerns were cheap B movies they churned out for double features. Westerns did not even come close to monopolizing big budget movies

[@taliamason7986]

Just like the 70's and 80's horror films.

[@chaost4544]

The dominance of Westerns in TV and radio had a part to play in that; something the video excludes.

[@FrostyMac]

I believe that a good point to be made is that “superhero” is a very vague genre in terms of iconography and visuals. Westerns are all generally aesthetically similar, even if the storytelling can be very different from one movie to another, but superhero movies can be VERY different from one another. Comparing Guardians of the Galaxy to The Dark Knight, you might struggle to find any similarities besides the word “superhero” itself.

[@h4zrd-rs252]

That's probably why I don't feel burnt out with the genre. If I'm bored and can watch, Endgame, The Joker, or Watchmen, I don't feel like there's limited choices

[@afrobuddy4801]

Mcu movies are very similar but the MCU are very different from DC. Also DC tends to have more varied movies

[@josephduncan7561]

I agree to an extent, but I would argue that Guardians shares a pretty similar formula to other Marvel Cinematic movies, even if it’s way better written. Same with Dark Knight; I think it’s more indicative of Marvel and DC trying to establish tonal niches in the genre than actual diversity in themes, tone, characters, etc.

[@afrobuddy4801]

@@josephduncan7561 Dark knight is nothing like MCU movies. DC also has movies like joker for example which doesn't fit the typical superhero mold

[@josephduncan7561]

@@afrobuddy4801 what i’m saying is that Dark Knight has an extremely similar, “dark” tone to other DC movies, i like it but it’s imitations like Man of Steel make it not as unique anymore. And Joker is like the one exception superhero stans fall back on, and its a blatant ripoff of Taxi Driver, a film from the 70s.

[@moisesberducido1248]

I want another 90's Hollywood decade, the actual second golden age for cinema: It was a time when every movie could be possible made and could touch every topic on earth. We need the Western genere came back in some form, more war dramas, a new wave in comedy and more eclectic comic-book movie adaptation, characters as Largo Winch, Diabolic or Duke Togo could be possible good candidates for Hollywood.

[@NoName-pl7zm]

Exactly. Hollywood needs to be more diverse in what they make for theatres. I’d love if we got another gangster film on the level of goodfellas. Or a western like unforgiven. And also some gritty crime thrillers like seven or heat. You know, movies made for adults instead of kid friendly stuff. These movies need to be advertised well so people will actually know they exist. And if the movies are fantastic, people will go to see them.

[@steamboatwill3.367]

@@NoName-pl7zm ) then why not just watch them again? plus The Irishman....

[@NoName-pl7zm]

@@steamboatwill3.367 by that logic why bother making any new movies because we can just watch every movie again and again and again. The Irishman was a breath of fresh air in my opinion but it’s just one movie from one genre

[@steamboatwill3.367]

@@NoName-pl7zm ) what would be "new" or "different" with more gritty, boring crime dramas?

[@NoName-pl7zm]

@@steamboatwill3.367 boring ?? Why are you arguing against having more variety of genre in Hollywood 🤦‍♂️

[@ReverendMeat51]

The way you say "and always, there's twitter" right up front, I can taste the disdain and it's delicious

[@thefilmseeker]

Another thoroughly researched banger video, as expected. God, I can't fucking stand Disney.

[@markmolino679]

Same here

[@steamboatwill3.367]

but it's fine when the other studios ( like WB ) do it.....

[@thefilmseeker]

@@steamboatwill3.367 No it's not... But Disney is very clearly the trendsetting problem.

[@steamboatwill3.367]

@@thefilmseeker ) are you blaming them for movies like "Thumbelina" or "King and I" too?

[@thefilmseeker]

@@steamboatwill3.367 ... What the hell are you talking about? This is a conversation about how Disney is ruining the film business, and by extension, the art film market, TODAY. What point are you trying to make?

[@higginswalsan]

Outstanding video! Great job at diagnosing the “disease” in modern cinema rather than attacking the “symptom” that is the state of superhero movies specifically.

[@nickyoude2694]

"Both the Roadshow and the Superhero Movie are also burdened by their own grandness". You may be onto something there, as a lot of it is down to individual circumstances. Suicide Squad was burdened by constant last minute reshoots to be more like Deadpool. Oliver! was burdened by the fact that they spent an entire month rehearsing the Consider Yourself number (which is a lot for what is essentially 5 minutes of footage). On the other hand High Noon was burdened by the Blacklist.

[@uninstaller2860]

When a new counter-culture merges and makes a super hero movie 20 years after they've died, I know it will be a banger.

[@Dave102693]

And it will be epic

[@existo_mas_nao_penso]

I am a Jon Wayne Enjoyer, you are a Tony Stark fan, we are not the same

[@stephennootens916]

It should be noted that Joker is pretty much a what a be Scorsese movie that rips of Taxi Driver and King of Comedy.

[@beejls]

Well done. I've always thought science fiction was more akin to westerns, at least the revisionist westerns of the 60s. That being said: Another excellent video! The studios make superhero movies because they think the same way that Hollywood did in the 60s, with musicals, that bigger was better to make more money. Maybe they're figuring it out that it isn't working, but they've spent themselves into a corner where the biggest spectacle possible is expected. They won't be able to afford it anymore, but that's a good thing. Scale down the explosions and pay good writers.

[@TheBlueLink3]

While I agree that scaling down the explosions can be good, having big explosions does not indicate they aren’t hiring good writers.

[@daniellipko710]

We have TV taking up the non-spectacle niche. When people buy tickets and go all the way to the theater, they expect a spectacle, and with modern technology, that’s finally something movies can actually pull off. So it makes sense that effects driven movies dominate, and I feel like that’s always been the case, to an extent

[@ZeroKitsune]

I really think the biggest issue is the perceived cost of making a movie for modern audiences. What I mean is that smaller, lower-budget movies have almost vanished from the scene entirely. It often feels like studios believe it's either blockbuster or nothing. I don't know if it's actually true that audiences won't go see anything else, but with the rise of streaming services and a growing audience of people that prefer to stay home than visit a theater...it might be true that only blockbusters still have the draw to get people in those seats instead of watching at home later.

[@bloodofmyenemies]

Off topic but... anyone who calls themselves a film buff, fan of cinema or anything like that who hasn't seen many classic westerns really should get stuck into the genre. There are countless amazing films within it.

[@Ignasimp]

Where to start? I do like cinema a lot, and also novels. But I mainly feel attracted to fantasy and science fiction.

[@jordandwiggins1026]

@@Ignasimp John Ford and Sergio Lorne’s western films are definitely ones to watch.

[@Menwulf20]

@@Ignasimp the original django (1966?) is also nice (and quite brutal) , but sadly has censored English audio in the last scene. As @Jordan Dwiggins mentioned "The good the bad and the ugly" and "once upon a time in the West" are brilliant.

[@JamesRDavenport]

High Noon of course. The Outlaw Josey Wales. Tin Star, Shane, Two Rode Together. Heck even some of Audie Murphy's B-reeler Westerns and Gunsmoke TV episodes had decent stories to tell, even if some of the acting was silly.

[@rivolinho]

It's tragic. I saw the shitshow that is Matrix Resurrections recently, basically a superheroification of that franchise and remembered how incredible seeing the original was in 1999. Those types of new and original concepts don't get greenlit anymore. Hollywood prefers to reanimate the corpse of old IPs and crowbar them into the superhero format now.

[@SKULLKR3W]

every matrix after the first was shit it didnt just suddenly start getting bad

[@rivolinho]

@@SKULLKR3W there's shit and shit. Reloaded & Revolutions weren't anything like the original but they at least felt like part of the same universe and had coherence. Resurrections was just a pure cash grab. A lazy, unconsidered piece of shit which looked like everyone involved was just phoning it in.

[@ColaTheLodger]

I started watching ready to disagree but you provide a convincing case. Well done.

[@EyebrowCinema]

Thank you, Richard. I appreciate you gave the video a chance.

[@jayxavier6930]

It would be worth expanding the inquiry beyond movies to moving image narratives in general: i.e. TV series. It may be blockbuster spectacles are dominating the cinema because the rest of the variety has migrated to the smaller screen: streaming and other TV services. There's some precedent for this, as plenty of works that gained their renown on TV were originally screened at the cinema: e.g. Bugs Bunny, Popeye or Mickey Mouse cartoons from the 30s-40s. It may be the exhibition spaces are changing -- not the art-works themselves.

[@JonConstruct]

The increased quality and scope of television is an underdiscussed aspect of the capture spectacle-driven films have on the box office.

[@jayxavier6930]

@@JonConstruct That's true. Another wrinkle in the debate is that quality TV isn't entirely without precedent -- and neither is the back and forth between the two media for select auteurs. There are generation-old TV works whose quality are on par with cinematic counterparts -- Monty Python and Fawlty Towers belong in the pantheon no less than the Marx Bros. or Howard Hawks classic screwball comedies. The same could be said of Dennis Potter's best works and the genre revisionism of an Altman, Godard or Fassbinder -- speaking of whom, these three directors, to say nothing of Bergman, thrived and, in the latter's case, sometimes did some of their best work on television. The same could be said of the 2nd generation UK kitchen sink realists: Mike Leigh and his contemporaries... An expanded understanding of TV would entail not just HBO, but Scenes from a Marriage, Berlin Alexanderplatz, The Singing Detective or Godard's 70s collaborations with Anne Marie Mieville...

[@bebo2629]

This! Not only shows but also movies. The Last Duel did not play in a theater in my erea for long enough for me to see it but I will watch it now that it is on Disney+.

[@sorryimsosad]

People usually mean they’re like Western movies bc of how many of them there were and how they’d span from a horror flick to science fiction. But, in story function, you’re right. I just don’t think most people think THAT deep about it.

[@pickupsmonthly]

Looking at top 10 movies per year is not an effective way of analyzing the relative popularity of different genres in the Classical Hollywood period. Film distribution looked very different than it does now, with block booking and theatres having to purchase whole slates of films. Do to the sheer volume of films being produced, films stayed in theatres for shorter periods of time. It would therefore make far more sense to analyze box office revenues from Westerns as a percentage of total film revenues. I think such an approach would lessen the disparity. The other issue here is that at once this video homogenizes all special effects driven cinema as one thing, while differentiating Classical Hollywood films. The Dictator for example is referred to in the video as political satire, creating a distinction from comedy, but films as diverse as Tenet to Transformers are all dismissively being included as extensions of the super hero genre. I think it is also fraught to describe superhero films as a genre. Take for example Logan: Wolverine is a superhero but that film is a Western. It utilizes the iconography and narrative tropes of the Wester. A film like Guardians of the Galaxy does not look that much different than a Science Fiction film like Star Wars. Deadpool is at its core a comedy. These films all feature superheroes, but it is very odd to describe them as all being representative of this one singular genre of the superhero movie.

[@SnapperChannel]

Excellent video as always Dan. I'm glad you emphasized at the beginning that this video is not a critique of individual superhero movies nor at anyone's enjoyment but rather its impact on the film industry and its place in film history. Because I think there's a tendency on the internet to take valid critiques as personal attacks when most of the time that isn't the case. Now I love superhero movies. I just came out of Spider-Man the other day and had a great time. But at the same time, getting nothing but Marvel and DC films is boring regardless if I love it. I don't always need the movies, I read the comics as well so nothing will be lost and I'm extremely looking forward to checking out PTA's Licorice Pizza. The Western comparison has been used so often (I'm sure I've been doing that out of ignorance too) that with this video, you really debunk how this just isn't true. I recently did a review of Eternals on LB where I discussed the issues I have with MCU discourse on the internet. While I still feel the "hater" side can be extremely vitriolic and way too into the mindset of "I'm right, you're wrong" (not signaling anyone out), they're not wrong in what their issues are. I don't want every single movie to just be dominated by Disney or WB even if I enjoy a lot of the superhero movies they come out with. The domination of these corporations leads to so many filmmakers new and old struggling in an industry that does not want them unless they make the brands for the company's profit. I still believe that just the "These cape movies suck; watch other movies" can be ultimately alienating and will not convince many to change their minds simply out of force than actual curiosity, but at the same time we need to acknowledge movies aren't always whatever new IP comes out and take the chance to look at these films made by extremely talented filmmakers that as you say experiment with filmmaking and tell unique interesting stories from their voice. Superhero movies will always have their place in entertainment, but there is more to film out there, and by doing that can we fully appreciate the craft. Wow, I wrote a lot more than I expected. Anyways, great set of videos this year Dan. Continuing to be one of the best channels on KZbin to look for film analyses.

[@andrewmcmillan229]

Spectacle is the only advantage the cinema has over the home theater, so that’s what will draw people to the movies. Theaters would be dead without big budget action movies.

[@GodwinBaxter]

That’s the thing no one wants to admit. Superheroes movies despite of their quality can offer big action scenes people want, specially after 2 year with pandemic and all the problems around the world.

[@cheetahluv210]

This video gives an argument why spectacle isn’t the only thing the theater has to offer kzbin.info/www/bejne/q4vHnWx6bLOKeKs

[@pixelguy9922]

While that would be an over simplification, I’d agree that you could make a case for it. However, the issues with the way the modern film industry works (that the video touches on) is the harmonization and lack of variety in films that aren’t low budget, as well as an ever growing concentration of market power in just a few huge corporations. Sure, spectacles will draw people to cinemas; but more and more big budget spectacles are getting released directly to streaming services (and while that is partly because of the pandemic, this model has proven to be lucrative). So while you could say that cinemas will mostly be reserved for big spectacles while smaller films will have the opportunity to find an audience on Netflix or HBO Max, this isn’t the case when huge blockbusters are released either directly to streaming (Jungle Cruise, Red Notice, etc) or parallell with their cinematic releases (like Dune or Black Widow). Especially when the big studios behind the blockbusters have the monetary means to dominate the marketing on these platforms (logging onto Netflix, the front page mostly promotes big budget originals or known IP’s, whereas it takes effort and digging to even know that some lower budget/lesser known films even exists). You can’t really say ”supply and demand” when the people controlling the supply also gets to artificially construct the demand. Maybe big budget spectacles wouldn’t be as dominating if the options weren’t practically hidden away. And then the self fulfilling prophecy continues: big budget blockbusters are the only films marketed by studios, therefor mostly what people ends up watching, and therefor what studios continue to market. Until finally, when Disney buys the last competing studio, and solely produces franchise films with light tones and meta jokes written by Ryan Reynolds. There will be 9 Marvel films per year, which you can watch in the Disney Inc Multiplexes all over the world.

[@megane-chan651]

@@cheetahluv210 as far as spectacles films goes, all marvel film would release in theater only for the near future. Black widow was co released to promote Disney + and Shang Qi /Spider-Man are both theatrical only. And the thing about streaming service is that, it is almost always there. The films you are interested in it is almost always there. It is not like you have to watch it in a certain time before its shelf life ends. If you think people simply watches what’s being marketed, then you have to remember a lot of DC released films are considered a failure (not a flop) despite its extremely recognizable ip and market which includes bvs, justice league, and first suicide squad. Like we have social media nowadays, if the film is good and likable, someone will know it, and they would tell someone else after they finish watching it. Or, have would considered, a lot of Oscar-bait films just won’t do well in the public without the awards and titles. And academy awards have been losing their cultural relevancy for a pretty long time.

[@cheetahluv210]

@@megane-chan651 okay but all I’m saying is going to a theater has value even if it’s not a big budget spectacle

[@mnorth1351]

To the writers/directors, movies are (or can be) art; but to the studios, movies are a business - they are the ones paying for them, after all. You can decry it all you want, but the Marvel formula works, (at least for now) so Hollywood won't stop.

[@NoName-pl7zm]

I don’t think they should stop making superhero movies. But they should definitely put more effort into their original films because the industry needs variety to survive. Christopher Nolan is a miracle considering the huge budget he gets to make his movies, and he’s a massive box office draw, almost more so than the actors in his films. We need more studios to give their directors freedom to tell their stories. Maybe not with the $200 million budget WB gives Nolan, but even if a studio gives a director $50 million to make their movie and they actually advertise it well and the movie is good, people will see it and a lot will make a profit. It’s all about variety so comic book films and original films can exist peacefully and the industry will flourish once again

[@universome511]

It is different to compare cinemas from the 40s with those from the 10s. There are usually only a half dozen superhero films a year while there were hundreds of westerns being released yearly in the 30s. Those 3 decades are when the vast majority of Americans didn't have TVs, let alone internet or gaming. The pictures were something people went to very often and there was so much content the chances of any one western making it into a hit list was so lower.

[@halonostalgiatheater7440]

Bring westerns back honestly, I never get tired of them

[@itsbeyondme5560]

Same ...the real American story

[@steamboatwill3.367]

@@itsbeyondme5560 ) yea, "shot the natives" or something.....

[@AhanaNags]

My family comes from India, so I've grown up watching a lot of Bollywood. In fact, for years those were the only films we went to theaters to see (since the rise of streaming). There are so many not great movies that come out of that industry, but there are far more risks taken. Recently, I've been enjoying the artistry of those films a lot more. There's a lot less "sameness" there, and it's definitely because there is no superhero franchise that exists in it. I don't know how popular Marvel and DC are in India, but I do know that a wide variety of film genres still succeed in Indian box offices. Great video as usual!

[@robertblume2951]

Yall have Superhero movies and franchises. Yall even had an Indian Superman with the s and blue tights and everything.

[@MujisTavern]

@@robertblume2951 and Bollywoods average action film lead is basically a superhero

[@benjihudson2768]

I think 50s/60s Musicals are a much better comp. Huge big budget Hollywood spectacles trying to draw people away from television and into movie theaters via their grandiose nature. Especially when you consider Roadshow Presentations to be todays IMAX, and the way superhero movies pull content from the comic book industry to be akin to musicals pulling from Broadway.

[@neurotransmissions]

What I’m getting from this video is not so much that superhero movies are bad for cinema, but rather that capitalism is bad for cinema. Because really, we’re just talking about the progression to the point that few studios have the marketing budget and IP to dominate the theater. With regards to westerns, I never felt the comparison had to do with money or box office domination, but rather the draw to telling larger than life stories about characters from a land that is similar, but different from our own. It is a modern day mythology that is intended to represent our social ideals or values.

[@EyebrowCinema]

I agree that the problem is capitalism and not superhero movies in and of themselves. Superhero movies are largely how the issue manifests, but not the source. As to your second point, while it is true that there is a comparison more rooted in issues of theme and ideology, there is also comparison that sees their equivalence with regard to the genre's place in the industry (though admittedly this comparison is also often coloured in part by the mythic aspects you mention here).

[@angelcibej349]

That was an excellent essay. I especially like how much research went into it. Very thoughtful and head and shoulders above the usual superhero movies are/are not cinema debates. Well done, sir. You have won yourself a new subscriber to your excellent channel. Keep up the good work :)

[@elliotlofton9970]

I've always argued that Superhero films are like Westerns in their genre and story structure similarity, I hadn't heard the debate that they held the same place in the business that Westerns once did. That being said, I still learned a lot from this video!

[@ballo3595]

Oh shit. I'm 18 mins in but so far you hit the nail right on the head. I could never articulate it before and it was even harder because I actually like most of the superhero movies that came out but seeing it from an economic lens has completely shifted my perspective. Well done!

[@lc9245]

Western proliferation allowed for experimentation which then introduced new technique, style that influenced later generations. Tarantino borrowed a ton of ideas from Sergio Leone. I don’t know if we can say the same about Superhero movies. The most clear, positive impact had been allowing directors and actors to be financially stable. Another aspect of this domination that didn’t get a mention is interestingly, China. Chinese audience are not going to show up to the cinema to watch Midwest Americans struggling for a living. They are there to see the spectacles, which their own movie industry can’t produce well. Why do they need to watch Hollywood period drama, historical epic that they themselves can produce and do well at? Not to mention, the Chinese audience come to the cinema to forget about their daily struggle. They don’t go to the cinema for an experience, they are there to forget, thus a preference for cheap comedy and spectacles. Similarity to the popular with LCD genre, Wuxia asides, superhero movies can pass through China strict censorship as well. In addition, since only a few movies a year can make it through, studios are forced to pour most of their budget onto a few projects, leaving no room for experimentation. Since Chinese audience make up most of the international box office, there’s no ignoring China. Lastly, of course, we have to take into account the changing industry. I think movies are closer to the audience more than ever through streaming. Small, experimental movies are made all the time and became wildly successful, more than ever. The industry has changed thus the definition of dominance could change too. Western was such a feature in all studios in the past that it seems fitting to compare it to superhero movies. Of course both artistically and financially they are not the same, but the attitude towards them from the audience seems similar. Perhaps in a few years the audience will fully decouple from it and move on to the next shiny thing. Then we might see another resurgence.

[@iododendron3416]

Another difference (also based on production cost, though) are iterations in other countries. Superhero movies seem to be universally made in the US whilst Italy for example made their spaghetti westerns, which in no way needed to hide behind their American equivalent. Germany to a degree, too, with the movie adaptations of the Karl May novels. However, due to the immense production costs, superhero movies are almost exclusively US-made (feel free to point out non-US superhero movies, though).

[@cheetahluv210]

Not to mention Mexican westerns are still being regularly made

[@asdkotable]

I wonder if a parallel could be made with Wuxia films. They're all action-based, usually big-budget films with special effects being a necessity. They don't seem to dominate the Asian film market nearly as much though, but I could be wrong.

[@GURken]

Recently I thought about video games commercialization and how fast it came from a hobby for nerds to a multibillion microtransactions-dlc-nft-battle pass money mess that can already kill the art form of it. In the end it all comes down to a fact that games as a media didn't have enough time to grow on itself to build its rules, its structure, to rise new generations on it as an orienteer for future experimentations. Movies on the other hand has a century in which the language, the view, the perception grew until the business came and made this art its property as an investment for future grow and franchises as laws that protects their new land. If only those kind of essays were made about industries outside culture and art you would see that every time when marketing sees new form of investment that directly connected to imagination, it ruins it, simplifies it until it dies out for a couple of decades with a hope to be reborn again by some passionate guy who who wants to create more than wants to make a fortune. In russian there is a expression "рыночек порешал" which means that if you go to the market than don't be surprised by its outcomes that can be unfair from your standpoint. Movie making always was a business but today it's much more that that. Our 4th industrial revolution is gonna create much more oligopolies in industries we until recently couldn't even think of and state monopoly capitalism will benefit from all these metaverses and transcontinental franchises recognizable around the globe. Thankfully I hope that man's sense of beauty is stronger than any manipulative marketing bullshit so audience can dictate its voice and not vice versa.

[@richardvlasek2445]

gaming rose at the same time neoliberalism did and it got cannibalized by it once the people in power realized they can make more money exploiting it than shitting on it as a hobby for violence obsessed nerds

[@LorikQuinn]

@@richardvlasek2445 even with violence, Manhunt (first one) was a HUGE fuck you to pretty much everyone, market, media and the players themselves? It really hurt Rockstar when they released it, even if the controversy made them look edgy and cool with the kids. Manhunt's goal was to be as gruesome as possible and make you uncomfortable playing it, of course it was all to prove that GTA wasn't that violent, but it still serves as an statement that any art form can go waaay beyond when money is completely ignored. And also, story-wise it makes YOU the one responsible for the ammout of gore the game displays, by doing the whole "The game is actually a snuff tape you bought from black market and you just started watching it" and when you go for the nasty kill animations it switches to another camera angle simulating a movie, and if you do more nasty shit you unlock bonus scenes of more violence making you the one who is looking for more violent shit. Don't recommend playing it because it's a bad vibe the entire game, but it shows how games and movies could be much more authentic and daring if money didn't play any role in our society

[@LorikQuinn]

The second one sucks tho, that was when they went for the money and of course it failed hard

[@geneparmesan8748]

I've always had a sense of optimism when it comes to gaming AND movies. Yeah, the mainstream stuff is commercialized, but the heavily-commercialized mainstream stuff also draws in more users/customers, whom in turn become the next generation's possible auteurs. I hate modern AAA gaming and its nickel-and-diming processes (with the exception of maybe a couple studios), but this kind of gaming also represents less than 10% of what I do thanks to an extremely vibrant indie game community that didn't exist in nowhere near the same capacity 20-30 years ago. For all the complaining I have done in my life about EA, for example, I've also been able to vote for my wallet and just never buy an EA game. The market at this point is literally so huge that alternatives to everything can be found. Movies are the same. People who complain about how many superhero movies and remakes there are must not really be looking at what the industry has to offer, because there are multiple excellent directors right now putting out unique, high-quality, original stories that just don't get marketed quite as much as these big box office tentpole movies. I also feel like there is a bit of a survivorship bias to old movies; a lot of people who say "movies were simply better in the 80's/90's/00's" are only referring to the *good* movies from those decades; time has literally just forgotten all the shit that came out in those decades. People in the 2030s aren't going to remember Cats, for example, but they're going to praise the 2010s for the Tarantino, Chrisopher Nolan, David Fincher etc movies that became instant classics.

[@williamchristy9463]

@@geneparmesan8748 Nobody can forget cats.

[@talhakatoonkhaana]

LOVE the Guy Ritchie Sherlock Movies. Wish there would've been a third, a complete Guy Trilogy. The first one was almost a 'quasi-psychological thriller' and second was an all out good V evil story.

[@thedukeofchutney468]

Friend: “All that are out are superhero movies” Me: “Yes and I have no complaints”

[@Bigfrank88]

So you’re the friend in the group everyone hates. Good to know.

[@Naurwal]

@@Bigfrank88 feeling small, big? No need to pick on some random person lol.

[@auberginemanproductions1608]

@@Bigfrank88 Eh, not really. He's just that guy that primarily enjoys superhero movies. Nothing wrong with that

[@bimmovieproductions6352]

Really great video, the monopolization of the industry is quite the scary prospect. Let's hope these studios eventually collapse under their own weight and we get another new hollywood ig.

[@danculbert6349]

OR....just watch non-Hollywood films

[@bimmovieproductions6352]

@@danculbert6349 I mean, that kinda goes without saying.

[@sonofsound]

This is put together really well, but the comparisons between top box office holders don't take into account the evolution of distribution in terms of theater chains, cans of print vs. hard drives and more.

[@robgronotte1]

While "Joker" is a DC IP movie, it's definitely not a "superhero" movie. No one in the movie has super powers, and no one is a hero.

[@regularshowman3208]

What's funny is that the interesting experimentation with the superhero genre has been happening for decades, just in the comics, not in the movies. You can find so much wacky/deconstructionist stuff in the Marvel/DC comics catalogue that it's kind of dizzying. Despite being the source for the current (and stagnant) superhero movie oversaturation, the comics are one of the nichest parts of the brand, which I think is why there's room for more experimentation. Plus there's a lot more space for a lot more variety to come out at once since a single comic doesn't have an almost comically titanic budget.

[@mat145395]

I was really sceptical when I saw the title, but you made a great point. I agree with your arguments, they are really well put. I wanted to point out however that the present situation of the movie industry is also related to the way we use cinema. It's really less common to go to the cinema to watch a small film and they are fewer and fewer small cinema theaters . but maybe different platforms will give an alternative future to cinema

[@JamesVarley]

Love that you used footage of such a wide variety of different Western, including some lesser known ones!

[@lukemccready2886]

The money and energy for non-superhero projects seems to be going into prestige television, which isn’t reflected in box office numbers. What I think we are really seeing is the theater being the exclusive home of big budget spectacle films, and the tv at home is for everything else.

[@mic6412]

At first I thought this was your old , “I just graduated from xy university and I know a lot about cinema” type of video . But from your mannerism to your ending sentence. I should say I was stunned. It is a great researched video explaining and showing examples of your point. It’s not attacking or disregarding any opinion about super hero movies or westerns. I hope your other videos keep the quality of this one, as I enjoyed it really much!! Thank you for this great video!

[@mesolithicman164]

I watch a LOT of westerns. In many of them the trappings of the west are just a background for character dramas. And though set 100 years before 1950s America, there are clear critiques of contemporary US social issues in the storylines. Superhero films, and I say this as a big comics fan, have a tendency to be all about the action and FX, with a bit of character interest thrown in on top. And usually it's a very predictable human interest story point, something to set up a plot twist later on. And the truth is Hollywood can't make decent westerns because there are very few, perhaps no, screenwriters able to mix a good character drama with exciting action. In the 50s and 60s there were plenty of good writers in films and one hour TV dramas.

[@btarczy5067]

Eh… Streaming and the prevalence of home entertainment systems play a big role in this development. Traditional cinemas just don’t provide the best way to enjoy movies anymore in the eyes of many. It looks dramatic when one only considers the box office but it’s not the only parameter anymore. Apparently teenagers are the ones most inclined to go to the cinema which explains why the popcorn movies cater to that audience. Another topic is blockbusters becoming too big and too expensive to take risks which affects the types of big budget movies that are being produced specifically. While I don‘t think that movies in general are in danger of just being about superheroes almost all the really expensive ones rely on a brand, established characters and serialized narratives. As we are just getting out of the Covid slump there might be new developments but I‘m not holding my breath waiting for the callback- and superhero era to end. Hopefully it won’t be possible for one company to control the market as Disney does at some point but that might be the very distant Star Trek future.

[@BishopWalters12]

I think they've some things in common, I'm not saying comic book movies will stop being made in 5 years or anything like that but everything/trend in entertainment, fashion and whatever else gets popular has a peak and a decline. I don't think the 2020's will have as many comic book movie hits as the 2000's or especially the 2010's.

[@Michael_ORourke]

So far 2021 is continuing the trend of the 2010's. 5 of the top 10 earners were comic book films (Spider-Man, Shang-Chi, Venom, Black Widow, Eternals). 4 more were franchise films (F9, No Time to Die, Quiet Place Part 2, Ghostbusters). One was an original comedy (Free Guy).

[@Tyler_W]

I think you have a bit of a point, but when you consider all of the films to have ever come out over the years, you'd be shocked how many there were. Sure, there are clearly more now than there were in the past, but there were still actually quite a few comic book and pulp-based films long before they became the currently most popular film genre. Westerns became fewer and farther between because there are only so many stories that can be told, whereas "superhero" isn't so much a genre as much as it is window dressing for whatever genre ir multiple genres a storyteller wants to use. The reason people think "superhero genre" is a thing is because Hollywood writes a lot of their superhero stories according to a particular formula, for better or worse. Superhero stories don't have to feel homogenous because they exist in all sorts of different kinds of stories.

[@BishopWalters12]

@@Michael_ORourke Hair metal was still big in 1990 and 1991 but it was pretty much dead by 1993. It's far too soon to really see what the trends and changes will be this decade.

[@chaost4544]

Streaming is the big x-factor.

[@godzilla2721]

Excellent video, as usual. I have been having this conversation with people for years, but you articulated it so well. Unfortunately, I don't see a solution to the issue. $ is the driving force and without physical media sales factoring into studios' plans anymore, studios will take even less risks and we get stuck with nothing but IP driven films which includes bad Star Wars movies

[@EyebrowCinema]

Thanks, Zilla. I certainly don't have any solution or answer either.

[@cheetahluv210]

Honestly while Spider-Man no way home is making a lot of money it does seem like the mcu is starting to lose steam I think superhero movies will always exist in some form I don’t think it’s going to stay dominant forever

[@cheetahluv210]

The cowboy bebop live action series flopped hard

[@henryglennon3864]

The thing about Westerns were that they weren't all based in branded intellectual properties. Some guy could just write a screenplay about cowboys, based on nothing other than an idea he/she had. There aren't any superhero movies that originated in film, or aren't based on anything, other than a couple meta-comedies which didn't do very well.

[@DoctorXander]

You've forgotten the Unbreakable trilogy and The Incredibles.

[@cheetahluv210]

@@DoctorXander plus dark man Hancock and robocop

[@spockboy]

To support your point, when Casablanca was made, Warner Bros. put out 50 movies a year, in 2019 Warner Bros. put out 21.

[@mchadwilson]

Great points. You mention TV early in your analysis and I wonder what it would be like to compare the three periods of media as it relates to box office: golden ages of silver screen, tv, and streaming. I think when you talk about the diversity of genre in silver screen, that’s because it was the only method of delivery. Now, those other genres are delivered via streaming, leaving the box office for movies made for the bigger screen and sound. TV and streaming provides intimacy necessary for character and drama and romance.

[@ornamental-hermit]

Torreto Vs Thanos? Half the fast, half the furious.

[@jameswhitaker12]

Phenomenal work, you've covered everything; the concentration of studio power, homogenization of the industry, emphasis of brand and IP loyalty over everything else. Like you I've no idea where we go from here or what the future of the industry holds but it does seem pretty depressing at the moment.

[@DecadesApartProductions]

Thank you for making this video. I have been hearing the argument that superhero movies are the same as Westerns since like 2015. It's always annoyed me because I knew that despite there being a lot of Westerns, that other films were also being made. The oversaturation of superhero movies is honestly irritating because it's gotten to a point when I tell people that I like movies they ask me "what did you think of [insert current popular superhero movie]?" Don't know, didn't see it. Was too busy watching the latest Sion Sono movie.

[@light819]

competition is never a bad thing, unfortunately we have almost no competition for the big names

[@DesignatedMember]

I wonder why some markets seem to manage to balance the superhero craze with a more oldschool film-industry. Marvel makes bank in Korea (as they do everywhere else. Its interesting how international the superhero appeal is) yet the Korean box-office can still maintain a more diverse and highbrow domestic film-market. Why can't the US financially support this balancing act? Why are American filmgoers so disinterested in these sorts of projects while Koreans aren't?

[@dionysus7045]

It must be that there's a difference in perspective in both countries. Where I'm from, movie stars are more important than franchises, which probably comes from the intense celebrity worship that comes with our culture. South Korea seems to be a culture more inclined to watch a film because of a director, and not because it's part of a franchise. I don't exactly know what it is about superhero films that seems to hit the goldmine everywhere, but I think it just has something to do with strong character recognition, virtually everyone in the world knows who Spider-Man is but not everyone knows Spider-Man stories, so when they go in the theatre, they know what they're going to get, but they still don't know what they're going to get.

[@a1t3rsworld]

idk if this point holds any water but i think in America, films are seen as entertainment first and art second (if at all) while other countries seem to view films as pieces of art as well. The comment prior to mine mentions how in Korea people go and watch films in part due to who the director is and i think this shows that people over there are interested in seeing someone's artistic work in addition to being entertained. The film being "high brow" and viewed as art adds to the enjoyment of it rather than being a hinderance. i imagine it's just a cultural thing.

[@gabbar51ngh]

America is a multicultural environment due to immigration. USA also happens to cater to international market because it rakes more money. Superhero movies are simply loved by everyone around the world. They are quite accessible.

[@AppliedGats]

Lots of cynicism here. I think Americans just watch other genere at home. Streaming services are the major platform for non blockbusters here. Americans still watch other things, but we go to the movies to have a fairly brainless good time.

[@mnorth1351]

So, when you included the Sherlock Holmes and Twilight movies, you switched from comparing superhero films to westerns to comparing films that are clearly and exclusively made for adults to all other movies. That is a rather big bait and switch. If you want to be fair, you should do the same thing with movies during the western era of hollywood - and make sure you discount war movies, car racing movies, any sort of action movie, and anything with massive epic wide shots. And really, comedy movies cannot be considered to be made exclusively for adults, so those should be disqualified as well, in which case ... what exactly is your point? That Cinema is just juvenile in general these days? Ok, but it has been that way for a long time - and that point is far removed from the stated purpose of your essay. I agree that Disney is too dominant, and perhaps should be broken up - but the categories you use and abuse in order to make your comparisons are too arbitrary.

[@chaost4544]

Completely agree. The analysis in the video feels like apples/oranges. He also discounts the huge impact westerns had on TV/radio in the past as well as the changing landscape of entertainment where top directors can produce their vision on streaming services. There's a reason why companies are spending 10+ million per episode on things and why big name directors are involved with streaming service products now.

[@mnorth1351]

@@chaost4544 That's a good point about streaming. A lot of the doom and gloom about the state of cinema I see on KZbin (See Chris Stuckman's recent video on about not making movies like they used to) does not address streaming. True, it is harder for mid-budget, non-tentpole movies to make it to theaters, and to get made through the major studios. But streaming studios don't have the need to fill seats to make back massive budgets - they seem more able to finance mid-budget films for visionary directors (like The Irishman). I certainly don't want to see movie theaters die - but the fact that movie theaters don't have as much variety these days as they used to does not mean that MOVIES can't have the same variety - perhaps some generes of films will find their place in the digital age as streaming films.

[@chaost4544]

@@mnorth1351 apparently Amazon is spending over $400 million on the first season of their Lord of the Rings series. That boggles the mind. Unfortunately, if 2020 and 2021 is any indication a lot of theaters aren't going to re-open. Streaming will continue to increase it's market share.

[@kcjc]

If anything, as a comic reader with no loyalty to a publisher, the rise of the big two in movies has lead to people taking chances on properties from smaller publishers/indie stuff. Though outside characters like Men in Black, Spawn and Hellboy (who should be included in this video imo) most indie stuff has been regulated to tv/streaming, but I’ll still take that level of exposure for those titles over nothing.

[@privatezeron]

Exactly. Studios are starting to adapt comics more now in hopes of creating their own tv/movie universe. That's a good thing.

[@8bitdiedie]

There are some amazingly-written indie comic books out there that are getting adapted mostly due to the popularity of comic book films and I appreciate that. I just wished they did it to European comic books as much as American ones though. There’s a whole world of fascinating Franco-Belgian comics out there that don’t get much love when it comes to film/tv adaptations.

[@hyperbolic3833]

So is this accidentally a video essay about the effect of TV (more specifically the golden age that's been concurrent with the rise of marvel) on the film landscape. So much of the successful adult focused dramas and comedies that are missing from cinemas are now on TV. They don't need the scale and impact of cinema and benefit from the increased runtime of the small screen whereas even when big screen superheroes come to TV they shy away from the spectacle of the big screen and go for more intimate stories. Great vid and interesting breakdown of the monopoly forces in modern movies.

[@bobbykarmi8165]

Excellent essay, really challenged my stance on the issue. I was wondering how you felt about whether or not the genres were compatible ideologically, i.e., "the western's ethos of American exceptionalism and dominant ideology is continued in modern superhero films"? That's been the angle I've been talking about it with friends, but I wanted to get your take if it isn't presumptuous.

[@EyebrowCinema]

Thanks, Bobby. In terms of thematic and ideological overlap, there's definitely points of similarity that are worth unpacking, though that'd probably require its own essay. But the discussion is worth having.

[@NoName-pl7zm]

Basically we just want to see badass cowboys shooting each other with a good story. I don’t think there’s any need to bring anything like American exceptionalism into it

[@Gemnist98]

From my point of view, the comparison is there, but the core ethos is vastly different. Western cowboys are treated with a reverence and moral fortitude that no outside force can touch; they aren’t physically stronger than any other person, but the way the narrative functions around them makes them appear like they are above all the bullshit of the era. This is the case even in more revisionist Westerns like High Noon or Unforgiven, and actors like John Wayne even outright criticized attempts from other filmmakers to make Westerns more relatable in the fear that it would be “un-American”. By comparison, superheroes - particularly Marvel ones - impact their audiences by how emotionally relatable they are. Even though they ARE physically stronger, superheroes still struggle with innate characteristics that anyone can relate to, such as addiction for Iron Man, social anxiety for Spider-Man, trauma-dealing for Batman, family dynamics for the Fantastic Four, or prejudice for the X-Men. That’s why I think superhero movies thrive more with today’s audiences: we are way more open to talk about our personal struggles today than we were fifty years ago. In other words, Western movies are about people who stand above everyone else and are better than everyone, while superhero movies have people that literally are that but still can’t have that pure confidence and end up straddling the line between normal and extraordinary.

[@Gemnist98]

@@NoName-pl7zm The majority of Westerns are like that though. John Wayne openly promoted American exceptionalism and wanted all Western films to have that underlying message. And Westerns, whether intentionally or not, tapped into that by having protagonists who stand above everyone and almost always completely fix everything around them. Meanwhile, the superhero genre used to be like that, but today they are embarrassed to be too patriotic for three reasons: the success of Silver Age heroes who deal more with personal struggles than any grand ideology; the need to be more palatable to international audiences; and the growing disenchantment in the American Dream that has been building since the late 60s. Superman and Captain America are basically the only heroes that still comment directly on the USA, and the vast majority of their recent stories have been about questioning or outright refuting those worn-out tropes that the Western propped up on a pedestal.