An Era in Superhero Movies Is Quietly Ending (And No One Is Really Talking About It)

It’s the golden age of superhero content. Every year, both Marvel and DC release a couple of comic book movies that make bookoo bucks at the box office. Warner Bros. and Disney’s respective streaming services, HBO Max and Disney+, are also flooded with superhero shows. It’s honestly difficult to keep track of everything, since everyone and their mother gets to headline a project these days. What’s easy to forget, though, is that the current superhero landscape is the result of years of success. The only reason the market is oversaturated is that, at one point, it seemed there were countless mouths to feed and not enough movies and shows to get the job done.

While it’s difficult to see through the fog, a shift is happening in the comic book movie world. A thought process that once seemed ironclad is being challenged in a way that will have significant ramifications not only for the movie and television industries but for entertainment as a whole. Gone are the days of studios taking chances; all the heavy lifting will now be left to those who have done it before.

Superhero Movies Used to Be Able to Make Mountains Out of Molehills

In the early 2000s, the powers that be at Marvel Studios had the bright idea to create an interconnected franchise using their catalog of characters. One major hiccup was that they didn’t own the movie rights to Spider-Man, the X-Men, or the Fantastic Four. In fact, all those characters had already appeared in live-action films before the MCU even released its first project. What Marvel Studios had was the Avengers, a team of heroes who had proven their mettle in the comics time and time again. So, Kevin Feige and Co. took a leap of faith by building a franchise around Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America.

Everything went off without a hitch for the first couple of phases. The Avengers proved that the formula could work, so Marvel Studios kept the ball rolling all the way through Avengers: Endgame, which served as a swan song for the franchise up to that point. Despite missing so many heavy Marvel hitters, it didn’t feel like the MCU could miss. The same couldn’t be said of its competition across the aisle, the DC Extended Universe, which couldn’t find its footing, even as it embraced its most prominent faces. However, times are changing, and as much as Marvel and DC may want to give underutilized characters their moment in the sun, that option may no longer be on the table.

Marvel & DC Aren’t Betting on the B-Team Characters Anymore

When James Gunn came over to DC from Marvel Studios after getting the opportunity to turn the Guardians of the Galaxy into household names, he sold the world a bill of goods, claiming that the new DC Universe would be full of unique stories, no matter who was at the front of the poster.

Well, after only a year, that plan doesn’t seem to be working out. At least one project about a team full of colorful characters, The Authority, doesn’t seem like it’s moving forward, and everything that is getting the greenlight these days has a big name attached. The Wonder Woman and Batman movies are moving quickly, with Gunn frequently providing updates on their progress. Shows like Waller and Booster Gold find themselves in the opposite situation, fighting to stay alive as part of an ever-changing slate, while supposedly “in development” projects like James Mangold’s Swamp Thing are hanging in limbo.

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Over at Marvel, it’s more of the same. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings has been fighting to get a sequel for years, but it’s not a priority. New characters like The Eternals, Moon Knight, and She-Hulk have similarly felt like one-and-done characters. What lies ahead are the X-Men reboot, the next two Avengers films, and the inevitable Fantastic Four sequel, which will surely be set up by the end of Avengers: Secret Wars. Disney is clearly going for big films featuring the biggest characters, and it’s hard to see how those secondary characters won’t be left by the wayside in the process.

It’s a shame that so many great comic book characters probably missed their chance to have their coming-out party. They’ll have to bide their time and hope another superhero boom takes place. However, they’ll probably be waiting forever because audience members have been speaking with their wallets and their time, and the message has been that they’re done with unknown quantities.

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