With the release of Captain America Marvel has finished all of their Avengers lead-ins. The summer of 2012 will see the release of The Avengers as well as Nolan/Bale's final entry into the Batman saga, The Dark Knight Rises. We'll also have the somewhat risky reboot of Spider-Man. Summer of 2013 sees another risky reboot, Zack Snyder's take on Superman.

My question is what happens to the superhero movie after those have been released? Most of the major characters have had their day in the sun. Will we continue to see sequels for movies like Thor and Captain America after they've already appeared in The Avengers?

Will studios start making comic adaptations of "lesser characters"? More adaptations of the as yet untapped DC Comics characters? More reboots?? Or, is this the beginning of the superhero end?

What say you?

After The Avengers has it's day, i'm guessing Warner Bros. is gonna try for a Justice League film, they've already got Green Lantern out of the way with Superman next to come, and there's currently plans for film adaptions of The Flash and Wonder Woman, so a Justice League film dosen't sound like a bad bet.

I'd like to think you're right, but I doubt it's gonna happen all too soon regardless of how well Avengers does. People really are getting tired of superhero movies, and fast. Captain America redefined the term generic, even more so than Green Lantern. I would say any superhero movie, aside from Avengers, is risky at this point...especially Snyder's Superman. And I wouldn't rule Dark Knight Rises out of the risk category either; sure, it'll make a shitload of money, but if it sucks or is received less well than the other two, both Batman and Nolan are in trouble. I predict that the genre will be pretty dead by the end of 2013.

Just superhero films or comic book films in general?

I don't think the superhero film will go away but the frequency at which they are released will slow as all the major players have films and the reboots are plentiful.

Comic book related films will continue. Many times people don't realize a film is a comic adaptation since the inspiration is a comic unknown to the mainstream (The Crow, Men in Black, The Mask).

Will probably never stop, but I imagine the frequency will drop precipitously once the major properties have been adopted.

Popular properties with a large amount of material and backstory to draw from will probably continue to get made, such as Batman, X-Men, Superman, Spiderman, etc. and rebooted every so often.

Maybe new comic book franchises/characters will be released in the future and those will get made into movies. Studios will, I bet, continue to try to bring lesser known characters to the screen. Maybe someday there'll even be a decent adaptation made from one of them. Who knows?
-Jeremy

With few exceptions, the message the public keeps sending to the financiers of these movies is "If it isn't Batman or Spider-man, we're not really interested."

The Avengers movie will probably do decently, whether it's good or (more likely) bad. The big companies will pinch off a few more after the current slate, for sure. But it's not a question of if the bubble will burst, but when. Someday, the superhero genre will go the way of the western, and pop culture cycles are only getting shorter.

I suppose I spend more time reading than watching films or TV shows, but there's actually a well of good superhero books that would adapt well for the screen. A recent example is Carrie Vaughn's After the Golden Age. If Hollywood wanted to draw from this well to produce good stand-alone films, there's a lot to go at. This is not to deny the reservoir of comic books and graphic novels but, frankly, the idea of delving even more deeply into the minor characters like Ghost Rider is more than I can bear.

Well based on the teaser, there is a slight chance Whedon may have jettisoned Branagh's lighthearted take on Thor. It'd be a shame if he turned him into Brad Pitt's Achilles, but let's hope for the best.

Agreed. Hell, even stuff like Road to Perdition and Ghost World were based on comics/graphic novels. There's no reason to stop adapting good stuff.



I'm excited for The Avengers strictly because Whedon is writing/directing. He's great with ensemble casts (Buffy, Firefly/Serenity) and mixes humor and drama seamlessly. He's apparently a big fan of the comics and his style seems perfectly suited to the film. I think the studio made the right choice, hopefully they have faith and let him make his movie without too much interference. He's a fantastic writer and he's working with already established characters. I think the screenplay, at least, will be worthy.

It's possible that it might kill off the genre for a while. But one thing that's true in Hollywood is that genres go in cycles. After Heaven's Gate Western's were beyond the pale (With a few exceptions such as Silverado and Pale Rider) for most of the 80s until Dances With Wolves and Unforgiven lead to a revival of sorts. Musicals were a no-no for most of the 90s (non-animated ones anyway) then Moulin Rouge and Chicago revived them and we had a whole bunch of followers.

One thing to keep in mind is that for every succesful superhero adaptation, you have one that failed. Iron Man succeeded. But the (so far) 3 attempts at making a Punisher movie have met with disastrous results. Spider-Man was successful for two out of three movies so far. But Daredevil came and burned out fast.

If one's looking to adapt Graphic novels, a solution might be to look beyond superheroes. Sin City is a prime example of how to do that well and since Robert Rodriguez has announced plans to eventually adapt all the Sin City novels we might be lucky in that regard.

Speaking of Sin City, Rodriguez recently mentioned that plans for a Sin City sequel are back on.

I specifically meant superhero movies but have absolutely no problem with the discussion being expanded to include comics. The graphic novel, especially, is a medium that continues to grow and evolve. I think we'll see those being adapted for years to come.



Agreed. In a few years I think we'll be seeing more Ghost Rider type (to borrow from dmar91) superhero movies instead of Batman and Superman type movies. I'm referring mostly to scale and quality (both of the finished product and of the people involved).



I'm not sure I agree with your first statement, Ken. The two Iron Man films, most of the X-Men series, Thor and several others did very well at the box office. They're even making a sequel to Ghost Rider (!!!) which means the first one was pretty profitable.

On the other hand I completely agree with everything you've written in that second paragraph. Spot on. I do wonder if studios won't try to re-create boom by re-making most (all?) of these superhero movies in a couple of decades.

The problem with adapting many classic graphic novel series is the length. I simple can't imagine doing The Preacher, Sandman, Transmetropolitan, etc. as a single film. A 13-part HBO series would be ideal, but you would need 5 or 6 movies to really do them justice. Not studio is going to commit to that.

I think it depends on the graphic novel. It also depends on the definition of "graphic novel". Please correct me if I'm wrong but Sandman, Preacher etc were first released as comics. Later several comics were compiled into trade paperbacks. When I said graphic novels I was thinking more of From Hell than of Watchmen. Also: this would be a bad time to admit that I've read virtually none of these.

Oh, man. You need to expand your horizons. The Sandman it up there with one of the most incredible artistic experiences I have had in any medium. Truly a classic.

Preacher simply rocks.

Comics, graphic novels... what's the difference? Anyway, do yourself a favour and read them.

Remember when there was a poll of the Top 200 most influential icons in America, and Superman broke into the top ten, while Batman and Spider-Man resided in the lower regions? I think that might have been a tad premature...

Once upon a time, "graphic novel" was intended to mean a story of novelistic quality (e.g. chapters, stylistic sensibility, multiple story threads, three dimensional characters, etc.) told in comic art. Will Eisner started the whole thing as far as I know, and comics like Maus and Watchmen popularized it.

The Big Two very quickly demolished the usefulness and legitimacy of the term by releasing volumes of collected issues--good, bad, or whatever--and calling them all graphic novels. To them, 10 shitty issues of Matter Eater Lad can be a graphic novel as long as they can square bind it and sell it for $20.

This is why I don't use the term, and prefer "comics". "Graphic novel" currently seems to be a term that adults have seized upon so they can read bad superhero comics without embarrassing themselves.

Incidentally, I second The Sandman. An absolutely incredible series of comics. It's a love letter to the act of storytelling.

avengers trailer is up

Influence and popularity are very different things. Hard to imagine anyone will ever top Supes in a random "name a superhero" sampling.

Anytime you see a character doing any combination of the following things:

* flying unassisted
* wearing a cape
* wearing underwear on the outside

you know exactly who they're imitating.

Mathematically speaking, there are a shit-ton of these characters--several mythologies' worh. And it all started with one.