DISQUS

Robert Fure · 1 year ago

Correlation does not equal causation. Movies in general serve as escapism from any situation. I would say the Iraq War has no more or less an effect on movies in general than any other external stimulus. In regards directly to superhero movies, I see no real connection between them, especially with comic movies like Watchmen, Hellboy, Batman, etc. The argument for Spider-Man, with all its out of place New York love and patriotism, is a stronger one.

JMoney · 1 year ago

You make a strong point, but i think technology is the real catalyst for this surge, 15 years ago we couldn't see spiderman swinging from his webs or nightcrawler disappearing into thin air, or iron man flying around kicking ass. well we could se it but it wouldn't have looked realistic.

So your argument may hold some value, but i think the technological advancement is the main reason these films have been successful

Mr.Carl.Lee · 1 year ago

I'm going to disagree with the previous two commentators, but I'm not going to agree with you completely.

Like you said, superhero movies had been in motion since the late 90's and I attribute their "surge" to the same reasons why comics sell wildly in times of crises, they remain relevant. This is the case with any good film, so long as its what everyone else is saying (under their breath), it will sell at the box office. Our current situation lends itself to comics and superheros very easily. In act of terrorism is comparable to the villains that splash chaos all over our favorite pages, and any good comic book character should responds to those events. Do you remember how much the Black Cover of Spider-man sold after 9-11? We related to Spider-man because we were helpless, just as he; he/we couldn't do anything but join forces and pick up the pieces of a broken city. The 8 superhero movies have a number of factors contributing their success, but their duty is the same as any good media, their meant to inspire, resonant, and even provide a little shelter from a world we sometimes choose to escape. The themes of comic books have successfully carried over to another medium; just as they opened-up to us then, they're opening-up to everyone else now.

Sam · 1 year ago

I'm in the middle on this one. I can see your points, and I know where they're coming from but you're taking out of factors to make your argument. The fiscal success alone is a perfect reason for why there are more superhero movies. The XMen & Spiderman had successful cartoon franchises through out the 90s (and before, sure), and, as you said the movies were in production before the war / 9/11. What this means is that pretty much anyone born in the 80s and into the nineteens grew up with these cartoons, even if they didn't necessarily read the comics. All this leads up to the financial success of those two movies.

Now I'll probably catch some shit for this, but I didn't really think either of them were amazing movies. Xmen was enjoyable, and it may be my bias of never liking cyclops but I thought James Marsden overacted (throughout the series). I really don't like Tobey Maguire. That's a little of topic, but my point is that neither of these movies where as good as their sequels (in my opinion) but they were still the culmination of the kids who are now young adults who are the target audience with disposable income's desire to see their childhood heros from comics and/or tv coming to the big screen. And they did well. So the studios in Hollywood did what any semi-conscious business man would have done, and saw the developing trend and started cranking out superhero movies.

I think it might have been here that I was reading someone talk about how in the late 80s before batman came out, everyone was batshit (no pun intended) insane wearing batman paraphernalia everywhere leading up to the opening night. You can probably make comparisons there to the sociopoliticaleconomic environment.

We all know why people love superheros, especially evident in early comic heroes, it's a classic struggle of good versus evil. The creation of the antihero is only really an association thing. People feel more jaded now and find it hard to relate to someone that isn't (at least, I think so). But this theme is not unique to superhero movies. People doing retardedly exceptional things is a common theme. If you're going on the whole impossible odds / saving the city/world, etc themes present in comics (ignoring the social outcast theme in xmen), you might as well call the Die Hard series superhero movies. The terminator series, as well.

The only difference in my mind is the trend that is supporting it. We have superheros now, the 90s had different heroes, and the 80s too. For some reason the 80s loved teens and little boys. I don't know what the hell is up with that, but whatever.

Cole Abaius · 1 year ago

I agree that it's a correlation, but it's a strong enough correlation that I think it merits at least a decent impact on what's happening. Money is the main factor, but there's a reason behind the money. That reason, I believe, is the state of the world propelling us to hit not just to the movie theaters, but to certain types of shows.

Perhaps the strongest argument that superhero films are specifically seeing that impact - and not just escapism in general - is that the industry is seeing a downturn in profits while superhero films are seeing a massive upswing. People are going to the movies less, but going to superhero movies more.

It's understandable that the trend could be more of the same from Hollywood, but for all realistic trend-tracking, most have strength for a few years and fade away. Superhero films, by contract, exploded right at the point when they should have been waning. By all counts, we're in the 8th year of the trend and it's reaching incredible new heights. This might not even be the crest, especially with 12 more flicks coming out by 2012.

However, I really can't argue the other points. Technology really is a predominant factor. One could easily say that we are proportionally blown away by whatever technology is presented to us (the children of the 50s were in awe of film then, too) but technology has jumped forward so quickly recently that it has to have had an effect on the industry, specifically with the FX-heavy films of superheros.

I also think that the coming-of-age of comic book fans is a major factor.

Still, as the Iraq War has changed the national mood significantly, I think it's clear that it, at least by way of shifting culture, has had a strong impact on what we look for in art - and what we're looking for, based on the numbers, is more superheroes.

JMoney · 1 year ago

But how do you explain the international success?

For example, Canada is not at war with Iraq, has not been attacked by terrorists and yet these movies are just as successful up here. We are in Afganistan but that really hasn't gripped the country's attention like Iraq has in the US. Not to mention all the other countries where these movies are huge hits as well.

Sam · 1 year ago

I would be very interested to see the number of people downloading bootlegs of the movies and see the comparison on the interest in film. One of the things I hear about superhero movies constantly is that they are a movie 'you have to see in theaters' because of the action / explosions / jessica alba. Action movies get/got this treatment to a pretty large extent as well. Other movie genres which the average film goer / watcher wouldn't mind on the big or small screen may suffer from (as much as I hate to say it) piracy, because people don't think it's worth spending the 11-13$ to watch it in a theater.

I don't know the numbers, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was a large number of the less-successful box office movies that were heavily downloaded. Don't get me wrong, there are also a huge number of people bootlegging the superhero movies too, but I think you see my point.

That being said, who knows, the less 'popular' genres may be suffering in all aspects of consumerism.

What I find interesting over the last x number of years is the slump in the number of large release science fiction movies. This may also be a factor in the sense that people are either too 'jaded' for scifi, they want something that holds little to no ground in 'reality' and thus the similarily thematic superhero genre has young adult/teens flock to it. Obviously BSG and the star wars movies sort of disagree with that point, but if you look to the 70s and 80s, and probably into the early 90s, there were a shit ton of scifi movies, ranging from the kid-conquers-evil Last Starfigher to the woman-conquers-evil Alien trilogy. Maybe the comparison I'm making is unfair since both sci-fi and comic literature borrow a lot from each other, thematically / stylistically / etc. The Space Race died out and so the interest in sci fi crashed, where as comics were still culturally relevant. Who Knows. I just don't see that these kind of genres (sci fi, superhero, super-action hero) really being all that different, and all of them have been highly successful over the years. But maybe I'm just looking at it wrong.

Anyway, I would agree with you that the war(s) probably do play a factor into all of it, I'm just not sure that it's THE factor.

Cole Abaius · 1 year ago

JMoney, you bring up a really good point about international success. My only response to that is that Canada copies everything the US does. Not really. It's a good point, a solid one that definitely draws into question the level of impact the war is having. I'd be interested to see how well these films are doing compared to the average in Canada and other countries.

¿uoods · 1 year ago

I must say I mostly disagree with this. Aside from the general escapism which might hold some water there are several other factors to consider;

The technology needed to realistically portray several of these figures. Special effects have exploded in the past 10-15 years, to the point where they can be believable on the screen. Many people have stated wanting to make these characters for years before hand, and were just waiting for the technology to catch up to them.

Lets not forget marvel and dc have in recent years started producing films themselves, hell marvel even has its own studio branch now. That's made a huge impact.

It is also noteworthy worthy that many helmers now are/were actual fans of the source material. Taking the films much more seriously then guys trying to make a buck. And in general much more truer to the source material. (Lets all ignore catwoman.)

So the war is IMO only a minor factor in this.

PlanBFromOuterSpace · 1 year ago

While I see what the author is trying to say, his points are just a little too broad. For instance, if you substitute "Superhero movie" with "Tyler Perry movie", a lot of the same points hold true, to a lesser extent, but still very true...

"Either way, one can’t deny the explosive rate at which their popularity has grown since 2003. This may be a coincidence, but at the very least, there is a noticeable correlation between the trend and the start of the Iraq War."

I agree with some of the previous comments, like how it's more a matter of everything finally coming together all at once (the technology, Marvel getting out of bankruptcy and getting some movies made, the source material being recognized as not just being kid's stuff, etc.), all just in the last few years. The superhero movie explosion isn't going to continue because of the war or anything relating to it, nor would it have stopped if the mission really WAS accomplished a half a decade ago.

Dr. T · 1 year ago

The link you're looking, which interestingly inverts your causal association by provocatively suggesting that Bush Doctrine and its crusade to save world from evil terrorists using redemptive vigilante violence is derived from the American Superhero Monomyth, for can be found here:

http://www.americansuperhero.com/