Ten years ago, a successful superhero movie was a rare thing. The once-successful Batman franchise was in shambles and awaiting a "gritty reboot." The long dormant Superman series was about to have an unsuccessful nostalgia-soaked sequel. The X-Men and Spider-Man franchises were each heading for spectacularly poorly-received third chapters. And we were four years away from a movie based on a B-list superhero called Iron Man. Now, not only is the box office dominated by all kinds of superhero movies but a handful of companies are trying to build ambitious cross-media mega-franchises based on comic book properties.
Foremost among these, is Disney and Marvel Studios who have built a successful mostly-high quality series of so ten interconnected movies and TV series collectively known as the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We take it for granted now, but prior to the success of Iron Man it was unheard of to have sprawling comic book-like universe that spanned multiple films and heroes. The closest we got to this in the past was the occasional winking reference to a larger universe ("That circus must be half way to Metropolis by now.")
At first the idea that an Iron Man movie would lead up to multiple interconnected Marvel movies and a full-fledged Avengers movie was wildly ambitious and slightly ridiculous. After all, these were hardly popular or well known characters like Batman or Superman. But here we are with Iron Man having completed an increasingly successful trilogy of movies and Captain America and Thor both 2/3 of the way there. Marvel even managed to make a weird and obscure property like Guardians of the Galaxy into a successful (and really good) movie that will certainly be a franchise to itself and which opens the door to even weirder upcoming back catalog movies like Ant-Man and Dr. Strange. Marvel is even getting a foothold into TV with Agents of SHEILD and upcoming series' based on Peggy Carter, Daredevil and other characters.
Marvel through their risk-taking and pre-planning has really defined making the modern superhero movie and how to market and cross-pollinate their properties. The shared continuity actually seems to fortify and increase the popularity of the individual series'. At this point, Marvel is one of the most trusted and respected brand names in entertainment. The other companies are simply playing catch-up.
At first the idea that an Iron Man movie would lead up to multiple interconnected Marvel movies and a full-fledged Avengers movie was wildly ambitious and slightly ridiculous. After all, these were hardly popular or well known characters like Batman or Superman. But here we are with Iron Man having completed an increasingly successful trilogy of movies and Captain America and Thor both 2/3 of the way there. Marvel even managed to make a weird and obscure property like Guardians of the Galaxy into a successful (and really good) movie that will certainly be a franchise to itself and which opens the door to even weirder upcoming back catalog movies like Ant-Man and Dr. Strange. Marvel is even getting a foothold into TV with Agents of SHEILD and upcoming series' based on Peggy Carter, Daredevil and other characters.
Marvel through their risk-taking and pre-planning has really defined making the modern superhero movie and how to market and cross-pollinate their properties. The shared continuity actually seems to fortify and increase the popularity of the individual series'. At this point, Marvel is one of the most trusted and respected brand names in entertainment. The other companies are simply playing catch-up.
20th Century Fox is in the game thanks to their venerable X-Men franchise. Brian Singer's original X-Men was released back in 2000 and helped to kick start the modern superhero movie phenomenon. It proved that even a property like X-Men which was not widely known by the general public could be made into a quality popular movie with a serious tone. Long before The Avengers, X-Men was the first superhero team-up movie. There is also something great and comfortable about the fact that the series has lasted 14 years without a reboot (albeit with some serious continuity issues.) While the movies have varied wildly in quality, the series has experienced somewhat of a resurgence thanks to the quality of the last few entries: X-Men First Class, The Wolverine, and X-Men: Days of Future Past, which are among the best movies in the series. Up until now, the franchise has taken a pretty traditional shape with a mix of sequels and prequels to the original movie. There have also been a pair of spin-off movies based around Wolverine, although since he is by far the most recognizable character from the franchise, this was hardly a risky move.
It does look like Fox will be taking a bit more of a Marvel-style approach in the future with rumors of potential spin-off movies and TV series in the pipeline. The X-Men franchise has a deep and rich well of characters from which to draw and there are some very interesting possibilities in the future. Fox also owns the rights to The Fantastic Four which is currently being rebooted by the studio. This would exist as a parallel franchise with the X-Men movies and the two series would not cross over with one another. Currently, there are no live action TV shows from either Fox property.
Warner Brothers clearly has the best portfolio of characters with the two most iconic superheroes Batman and Superman. Unlike Marvel, the DC comics characters are all with one studio which means that Warner Bros. also has the rights to popular secondary characters like Wonder Woman, The Flash, and Green Lantern. By rights, Warner should be on top of the superhero game but they are not. What happened?
Warner Brothers is the studio that gave us the granddaddy of all superhero movies, Superman: The Movie and it had a successful run with that character through out the 1980's. The studio then had a popular run with Batman and its sequels in the 1990's. A later attempt to continue the Superman franchise was unsuccessful but the studio had great success and acclaim with Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy of Batman movies, which set the benchmark for quality in the genre. By the time that trilogy concluded it was clear that Marvel was successfully changing the terms of an entertainment franchise by building a shared cinematic universe. Had Warner Bros. Green Lantern been successful, they may have been able to get a head start on building their own multi-character franchise but the movie fell flat with fans and audiences. As successful as Nolan's Batman movies were, they didn't loan themselves narratively or tonally to a shared universe so Warner had to start from scratch and quite late in the game.
While Man of Steel wasn't a smash hit, it was good enough to launch a DC comics franchise that extends beyond the Superman character. It was then announced that its sequel would be a Batman/Superman crossover movie, which, while slightly desperate, was at least something audiences hadn't seen on film before. What's more, a two-hero team up was something that Marvel Studios hadn't actually done yet (note to Marvel: Please make a Hulk/Iron Man movie). However, it's becoming increasingly obvious that Batman V Superman is actually a Justice League setup and not even a proper team-up movie. Forget about it even being a Man of Steel sequel. It seems almost every day brings news of another superhero character being crammed into the story. Warner Brothers seems determined to build a Marvel-like movie franchise without actually doing all of the work and planning that Marvel has done to get to this point. They also have a lot counting on Man of Steel and Batman V Superman director Zack Snyder, who has a mixed record of turning out movies that are a deadly combination of nerdy and tedious.
While the DC characters have a cloudy future at the movies, they continue to do well on TV. Historically, DC properties (in particular Superman) have been quite successful on television. Currently, Arrow is having a well-received run on television and is spinning off into a series based around The Flash. We seem to be on our way to a small-screen version of the Justice League, although Warner Brothers stubbornly insists on keeping the TV and movie universes separate. Also coming up are shows based on John Constantine and Batman's Commissioner Gordan.
While Warner Bros is having their share of superhero problems, their ineptitude is rivaled by that of Sony, which holds the rights to Spider-Man and his associated characters. In terms of popularity and recognition, Spider-Man is one of the few truly A-list superhero characters, rivaled only by Batman and Superman. He is also a beloved character who's struggles and humanity make him a more relatable character than other superheroes. Sony clearly has a mega franchise in mind based around their Amazing Spider-Man movies, but the problem is that the Spider-Man universe is not as diverse as any of the others we looked at. As far as heroes, you have, well, Spider-Man.
The other issue is that The Amazing Spider-Man movies under-perform at the box-office and are generally less enthusiastically-received than their predecessors. It's strange because the movies have a lot going for them. Andrew Garfield is a credible Peter Parker and a better, more fun Spider-Man than Toby Maguire ever was. His chemistry with Emma Stone in the first two movies has been terrific and something really special and unique for this genre which often uses women as props or damsels-in-distress. But somehow the action and spectacle aspect of the genre is not particularly satisfying in these movies. Also, the fact the the series was both quickly rebooted after Spider-Man 3 and quickly sequelized only two years later smacks of a greedy studio trying to rush out a movie franchise. In addition to all that, these movies work a little too hard through their Ozcorp subplot to set the stage for future sequels and spin-offs. Ozcorp, in these new movies, apparently does nothing other than make supervillains.
We know that Sony is planning some currently unknown spin-offs of the Amazing Spider-Man movies as well as a villain-centric movie based on the villain team-up group known in the comics as The Sinister Six. This is an interesting solution to the fact that Sony doesn't have the rights to many interesting hero characters and Spider-Man's gallery of rogues is second only to that of Batman. Also, a villain team-up movie is something that could be fun and unique which Marvel has not even done. However, the villains in the Amazing Spider-Man movies have consistently been the weakest aspects of the story. In addition to this, it is not clear that this movie would even feature Spider-Man, which makes this potentially a Spider-Man movie with no Spider-Man in it.
Disney and Marvel Studios obviously have a winning system in place for finding interesting characters, creating compelling stories for them and matching them with directors and actors who are passionate about them. No other studio is really on their level when it comes to doing this in the superhero genre. A lot will depend on the success or failure of Batman V Superman. Certainly, it will make a lot of money, no matter what. But if it is actually a good movie, it could create a genuine DC Cinematic Universe. Warner Brothers has the characters already, the potential is there but they need to figure out how to make it happen and it is likely they are running out of time to do this. It is only a matter of time before people get sick of comic book superhero movies. The market is already saturated with them. In making consistently good movies, Marvel is perhaps carrying this trend farther than it would otherwise have gone but it is doubtful that the market can take a couple of big budget superhero turkeys. Sooner or later the bubble will burst and Marvel and possibly Fox's X-Men movies are the only two franchises that could survive a Super Hero Crash.
Patrick Garone
Follow Me on Twitter
Warner Brothers is the studio that gave us the granddaddy of all superhero movies, Superman: The Movie and it had a successful run with that character through out the 1980's. The studio then had a popular run with Batman and its sequels in the 1990's. A later attempt to continue the Superman franchise was unsuccessful but the studio had great success and acclaim with Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy of Batman movies, which set the benchmark for quality in the genre. By the time that trilogy concluded it was clear that Marvel was successfully changing the terms of an entertainment franchise by building a shared cinematic universe. Had Warner Bros. Green Lantern been successful, they may have been able to get a head start on building their own multi-character franchise but the movie fell flat with fans and audiences. As successful as Nolan's Batman movies were, they didn't loan themselves narratively or tonally to a shared universe so Warner had to start from scratch and quite late in the game.
While Man of Steel wasn't a smash hit, it was good enough to launch a DC comics franchise that extends beyond the Superman character. It was then announced that its sequel would be a Batman/Superman crossover movie, which, while slightly desperate, was at least something audiences hadn't seen on film before. What's more, a two-hero team up was something that Marvel Studios hadn't actually done yet (note to Marvel: Please make a Hulk/Iron Man movie). However, it's becoming increasingly obvious that Batman V Superman is actually a Justice League setup and not even a proper team-up movie. Forget about it even being a Man of Steel sequel. It seems almost every day brings news of another superhero character being crammed into the story. Warner Brothers seems determined to build a Marvel-like movie franchise without actually doing all of the work and planning that Marvel has done to get to this point. They also have a lot counting on Man of Steel and Batman V Superman director Zack Snyder, who has a mixed record of turning out movies that are a deadly combination of nerdy and tedious.
While the DC characters have a cloudy future at the movies, they continue to do well on TV. Historically, DC properties (in particular Superman) have been quite successful on television. Currently, Arrow is having a well-received run on television and is spinning off into a series based around The Flash. We seem to be on our way to a small-screen version of the Justice League, although Warner Brothers stubbornly insists on keeping the TV and movie universes separate. Also coming up are shows based on John Constantine and Batman's Commissioner Gordan.
While Warner Bros is having their share of superhero problems, their ineptitude is rivaled by that of Sony, which holds the rights to Spider-Man and his associated characters. In terms of popularity and recognition, Spider-Man is one of the few truly A-list superhero characters, rivaled only by Batman and Superman. He is also a beloved character who's struggles and humanity make him a more relatable character than other superheroes. Sony clearly has a mega franchise in mind based around their Amazing Spider-Man movies, but the problem is that the Spider-Man universe is not as diverse as any of the others we looked at. As far as heroes, you have, well, Spider-Man.
The other issue is that The Amazing Spider-Man movies under-perform at the box-office and are generally less enthusiastically-received than their predecessors. It's strange because the movies have a lot going for them. Andrew Garfield is a credible Peter Parker and a better, more fun Spider-Man than Toby Maguire ever was. His chemistry with Emma Stone in the first two movies has been terrific and something really special and unique for this genre which often uses women as props or damsels-in-distress. But somehow the action and spectacle aspect of the genre is not particularly satisfying in these movies. Also, the fact the the series was both quickly rebooted after Spider-Man 3 and quickly sequelized only two years later smacks of a greedy studio trying to rush out a movie franchise. In addition to all that, these movies work a little too hard through their Ozcorp subplot to set the stage for future sequels and spin-offs. Ozcorp, in these new movies, apparently does nothing other than make supervillains.
We know that Sony is planning some currently unknown spin-offs of the Amazing Spider-Man movies as well as a villain-centric movie based on the villain team-up group known in the comics as The Sinister Six. This is an interesting solution to the fact that Sony doesn't have the rights to many interesting hero characters and Spider-Man's gallery of rogues is second only to that of Batman. Also, a villain team-up movie is something that could be fun and unique which Marvel has not even done. However, the villains in the Amazing Spider-Man movies have consistently been the weakest aspects of the story. In addition to this, it is not clear that this movie would even feature Spider-Man, which makes this potentially a Spider-Man movie with no Spider-Man in it.
Disney and Marvel Studios obviously have a winning system in place for finding interesting characters, creating compelling stories for them and matching them with directors and actors who are passionate about them. No other studio is really on their level when it comes to doing this in the superhero genre. A lot will depend on the success or failure of Batman V Superman. Certainly, it will make a lot of money, no matter what. But if it is actually a good movie, it could create a genuine DC Cinematic Universe. Warner Brothers has the characters already, the potential is there but they need to figure out how to make it happen and it is likely they are running out of time to do this. It is only a matter of time before people get sick of comic book superhero movies. The market is already saturated with them. In making consistently good movies, Marvel is perhaps carrying this trend farther than it would otherwise have gone but it is doubtful that the market can take a couple of big budget superhero turkeys. Sooner or later the bubble will burst and Marvel and possibly Fox's X-Men movies are the only two franchises that could survive a Super Hero Crash.
Patrick Garone
Follow Me on Twitter
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