Superhero films have had a rough go over the past few years. They’ve been on a downward spiral since Avengers: Endgame both with Marvel and DC.
While both studios are working towards changing things up and fixing the broken aspects of their filmmaking processes, directors Joe and Anthony Russo don’t really believe in superhero fatigue.
When asked about the subject matter during an interview with GamesRadar, Joe believes that the current state of superhero films is due to a transformation in how the world now absorbs media.
He explained: “I think it’s a reflection of the current state of everything. It’s difficult right now, it’s an interesting time. I think we’re in a transitional period and people don’t know quite yet how they’re going to receive stories moving forward, or what kinds of stories they’re going to want.
He added: “There’s a big generational divide about how you consume media. There’s a generation that’s used to appointment viewing and going to a theater on a certain date to see something, but it’s aging out.”
Joe went on to say: “Meanwhile the new generation are ‘I want it now, I want to process it now’, then moving onto the next thing, which they process whilst doing two other things at the same time. You know, it’s a very different moment in time than it’s ever been.
He added: “And so I think everyone, including Marvel, is experiencing the same thing, this transition. And I think that really is probably what’s at play more than anything else.”
The filmmaker actually makes some good points here. At the same time, I believe the quality of storytelling and filmmaking also matters if people are going to show up to spend money watching movies at the cinema. People just want good stories!
Joe also went on to say that this is an issue with the world in general. As he said: “We have never collectively, globally, processed our conversation so intimately and quickly as we do now. I think that creates problems, where we over-process and don’t care about context anymore.
He continued: “We communicate through memes and headlines, with nobody reading past two sentences, so everything’s 100 characters or less – or 10-second videos on social media you swipe through. I think that the two-hour format, the structure that goes into making a movie, it’s over a century old now and everything always transitions.
“So, there is something happening again and that form is repetitive. But it’s hard to reinvent that form and I think this next generation is looking for ways to tell their own stories that service their own sort of collective ADHD.”
Anthony Russo then says that even if superhero fatigue was the problem, it’s not new. He explained: “I think it’s fatigue in general. The superhero fatigue question was around long before the work we were doing. So, it’s sort of an eternal complaint, like we always used to cite this back in our early days with superhero work.”
Anthony added: “People used to complain about westerns in the same way but they lasted for decades and decades and decades. They were continually reinvented and brought to new heights as they went on.”
The Russo Bro. have an interesting outlook on all of this. What do you think about their thoughts?