Doomsayers of the superhero genre have reason to be happy this morning, as Steven Spielberg has announced the end of the superhero genre!
“We were around when the Western died and there will be a time when the superhero movie goes the way of the Western.”
To be fair, in his interview with the Associated Press, Spielberg did note that every genre has its cycle. We’ve seen that with the western, John Grisham’s movies, horror flicks, and it isn’t a giant revelation that audiences will eventually wane on superhero flicks. Even while clarifying his remarks, Mr. Spielberg gives hope that a new genre will emerge.
“Of course, right now the superhero movie is alive and thriving. I’m only saying that these cycles have a finite time in popular culture. There will come a day when the mythological stories are supplanted by some other genre that possibly some young filmmaker is just thinking about discovering for all of us.”
It’s probably a good thing that Spielberg isn’t renewing the distribution deal with Disney, as two of the biggest money makers – Marvel and Lucasfilm – fit right into the genre cycle downfall Spielberg is predicting.
2 Comments
While I’m not naive enough to think that the Superhero genre will last forever in film, I do think it has a lot more life to it. Comic books have a huge fan base and a very wide range of possibilities and source material from which to pull. Westerns are a smaller niche genre, much like creature fads such as vampires, zombies, and aliens. Everything has a half-life of audience interest, but as technology improves so does filmmakers’ ability to reinvent cherished stories from static sequential art into motion pictures. As interest wanes, perhaps the lack of blockbuster budgets will see an increased focus on story and character development as opposed to over-the-top CGI slug-fests. Either way, I will certainly enjoy the boom while it lasts and continue reading and loving comics regardless of the quality or quantity of media adaptations surrounding them.
Pfffft. What does he know about the Film Industry?