Are we waving goodbye to the superheroes?

We all know them, and we all love them. But the era of the superhero movies are maybe coming to an end. Why is that? And will we no longer be looking at buff men and women dressed in slim tights and colourful capes?

A dominating and very unique genre of movies saw it’s first light of the day back in the 00’s.
It all started with the Batman-movie who was published in 2002 and became a massive success. If we look at the cold facts we can see, that in the list of best selling movies are The Avengers from 2012 and The Dark Night from 2008 present.

This is an independent genre, although it’s got a lot in common with the action-genre.
In both genres, we have an outstanding hero who saves the day and is unbeatable. But in the action-genre we have heroes like Harry Callahan and John McClane, who comes home at the and of the day and still remains the same hero. Unlike Spiderman and Batman who comes home in the end of the day and becomes a whole other person when they take their masks of. Often, when they get home, the superheroes turn into the opposite of a superhero- someone that you would never expect to save the world. And someone you could identify yourself with. And that is one of the most important parts in a superhero movie, because the hero stays anonymous and that creates an exiting story and a different view on the heroes. These superheroes are also different, because they take care of business by them selves. They do not get help from the police and doesn’t care a great deal about the law. Actually they usually don’t follow it. You could call them a lawless.

If you take a closer look at the word superhero, you can start to wonder where “super” comes from. It’s a big word and a little bit odd. Rambo for instance would never call himself “super” -it’s like he has too much discipline to use such a big word to describe him, because he is too humble. But on the other hand, Batman and Spiderman are superheroes, because they are different. They have these extraordinary powers so they are something out of the ordinary.
The society the superheroes are living in has also a big influence on the genre and movie. In almost every superhero movie the superhero’s job is to keep the city protected from evil powers. . Unlike the action films, the hero fights regular crime or fights in some kind of war. But the superhero gets his very own evil enemy, who also has superpowers of some kind.
In the last twelve years, sixty movies about masked men have been made. A very few of them were women.

But sadly it seems like the popularity of the superhero movies are coming to an end. And that results in the end of the superhero-genre.
If we look at the beginning, the first time a superhero movie was made, it was a massive success. The popularity for the genre exploded, similar to the time where western-movies were hot. The western movies died out, and maybe the same thing will happen for the superhero-movies.

A man named David Bordwell has his own opinion on this case. He thinks, that there are three good reasons to explain this phenomenal.
The first one is that other movies besides the superhero-movies also can be popular. The second thing is that the people who watch the movies do not represent a specific time. And the last one, and maybe the strongest one, is that the ordinary watchers of the movies don’t perceive the movie in the same way, as for example the critics do.
I should quickly mention, that the superhero-genre has been the most popular and dominating genre in the last ten years. And that can maybe tell us, that superhero-movies are not just going to disappear all of a sudden. It maybe takes a few years.

But of course, there are some sings that indicates the end of the superhero-genre.
For example, in the last made Batman and Spiderman-film, the superhero has become weaker and less powerful. He cannot “save the day” by himself anymore, he’s going to need help from the police and the citizens. We also follow his private life more, relative to the alter ego.
All this is maybe a nice way to gently fire the superhero without telling.
The towns don’t need them as much as before and the police and the government can solve the problems now. And the most important thing: the hero is getting weaker. This happened to the western-genre too.
So the question is now, what is going to be the next massive movie-genre?
Well, we can only give it your best guess.