The Golden Age Of Superheroes?

BY: DARIAN SABLON AND NOAH CASTAGNA

Bob Iger, a chairman at Disney, has recently stated that Disney could literally do Marvel and Star Wars movies forever. This raises an interesting premise: is Disney so sure that people will always demand superhero movies and never tire of the genre? No one is arguing that the we are right now in the Golden Age Of Superhero Movies, but when will this Golden Age end? Your faithful bloggers, Noah Castagna and Darian Sablon take a crack at the question: When will the Golden Age Of Superhero Movies End?

Darian- Superhero Films Will Die Off After Marvel’s Infinity War Part 2 (2019)

The Golden Age Of Superheroes started with Marvel’s Iron Man in 2008 and from that moment on Marvel has been constantly pumping out 2 or 3 Marvel movies every year, most of them critical and box office successes. Now that Warner Bros. has joined the superhero movie race, fans can be sure that superhero movies are at their apex. Yet there is a dark figure lurking in the distance, the looming figure of boredom. As any casual moviegoer and hardcore superhero fan can see, the Marvel movies are made on a basic formula; make the hero/heroine doubt themselves, make the casual business guy go automatically crazy and what not and the hero/heroine in the end gets over their insecurity and kill the bad guy and so far this formula has been working perfectly. But now, 8 years in, people are getting tired of the formulaic Marvel movies and looking for other genres that offer something different. One also has Warner Bros. who, while trying to catch up to Disney, is pumping out possibly terrible superhero movies just for the monetary gain that Disney has achieved.

All of these factors will ultimately culminate in the end of the Golden Age of Superhero movies, with the demand of these movies plummeting dramatically, and Marvel’s Infinity War Part 2, where everything after will suck. Marvel’s Infinity War Part 2 in 2019 will be the biggest superhero movie of all time, all the superheroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (i.e., Captain America, Iron Man, Spiderman, etc.) will join forces to stop the ultimate conquering of the universe. With such epic proportions, where do you go from there? Simply, you can’t. Audiences will be craving for the  epicness of Infinity War Part 2 from both Warner Bros. and Disney, and it’s impossible to do so without the audience becoming bored of that. So that’s where it ends for superhero movies, Infinity War Part 2 is where it all goes down from there, and maybe that’s good because sometimes too much of a good is ultimately bad.

Noah- Though The Golden Age May Cease, Superhero Films Will Live On

Genres have fallen and risen in popularity since the dawn of film-making technology. The Western has been dead for years, with occasional attempts at revitalization (such as the modern “masterpiece” Cowboys and Aliens) to no avail. Even the Bronze Age superhero genre did die out after the catastrophic Batman and Robin. However, the times have truly changed, with modern superhero films straying away from the tired niche Westerns dominated. While they may recycle some cliches and definitely have room to improve, the demand of comic book films is currently on an upward trend with no signs of slowing, and to suggest that three superhero-packed years could satisfy this hunger is simply ludicrous. Batman and Robin had already come at a time when superhero films were struggling to maintain interest, and the diversity of Bronze Age superhero films was severely lacking. Yet, even after failures such as X-Men 3: The Last Stand, Green Lantern, and the recent Fant4stic, the modern superhero genre has chugged onwards, plowing through every terribly written screenplay and poorly directed abomination to bring us the greatest superhero films we have ever seen. For every X-Men Origins: Wolverine, there will be a Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and this constant tsunami of content has shown no signs of stopping since it began gathering strength in 2008, with more and more films releasing every year. Fatigue is assured inevitably, but, just like the horror genre, this constant stream will, while possibly suppressed by discontent, never cease.

Action blockbusters are no strangers to high revenue from foreign markets, as seen by the $1.1 billion scored by Transformers: Age of Extinction, and superhero movies are no stranger to this obscene fascination. Iron Man 3 and Avengers: Age of Ultron all scored over a billion thanks to a strong foreign following, despite mixed critical reception. These box office successes are only a testament to the hunger of modern movie-goers for great, superhero action, and with no signs of slowing, superhero films will live on.