Every year many, many people forecast that this will be the year when superhero and comicbook movies finally will lose ground...

Except they don't - they still dominate the box office even with lesser known heroes... And looking at the release schedule I don't think that 2017 will be the year that one cb movie after the other will start to disappoint...

So what happened to superhero fatigue?

It will start after Justice League for D.C. And after Avengers 4 for Marvel.

Fatigue only sets in when the current release is a horrible movie.

This. Its just used as an excuse for when a movie underperforms.

it'll set in 2020

Well, superhero films keep reinventing themselves. If they kept being made the same way they were made in 2000 (like X-Men) then there would be fatigue. But they keep evolving, like Logan and Deadpool have shown. Wonder Woman is another type of evolution.

And over all of this is the franchise effect (like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings) where people keep going because they want to get to the end of the phase(s) to see how it all ends. People are on the journey, and they want closure. Once some sort of closure happens, then you will see fatigue.

The Superhero film has developed into a full fledged genre. It might go out of style at some point like the Western did in the 90s and 2000s, but the Western reigned strong from the 50s through the early 70s well over a decade and s half. So perhaps the mid 2020s we might see something considering the Superhero genre did not fully take flight until the early 2000s.

The vast majority of superhero films are liked and well-reviewed. You could see fatigue set it in if the writers start getting lazy and churning out Hulk-esque junk.

I know I'm personally burned out from them (although obviously the general public disagrees).

I haven't been able to muster a fuck about anything involving the MCU since Ultron.

I'm even having a hard time getting excited about Logan despite the raves.

Sounds like you need some movie viagra...

I plan on seeing Get Out and Kong soon.

Totally like no fatigue if they keep casting the simmering throbs smothering a gurls dreams bra.

I know I have used that argument sometimes but I do agree with this now. Given how these movies are performing these days I don't think there is much of a fatigue for this genre yet and we won't see it soon. There will always be some of them which will underperform expectations but relatively smaller movies will make up for that loss.

Superhero films have essentially cornered the market on massive CGI action spectacles. Most other franchises that fit that are either declining (Pirates, Transformers, Fast and Furious) or simply done for the foreseeable future (Harry Potter, Middle Earth), with the big exception being Star Wars.

Basically, superhero fatigue is not going to happen unless audiences grow weary of action films, or some other genre begins to craft multiple critical and commercially successful franchises that give audiences what they want from superhero films.

As I keep saying, superhero fatigue will come when contracts are up and studios have to reboot franchises and characters. People don't like that very much, but studios must do it (because RDJ doesn't want to play Stark into his 80s). You'll see fatigue with the next round of whoever plays Wolverine, Tony Stark etc. And because we know Hollywood cannot truly remake franchises (they just reboot the same stuff with different actors), we will see a decline in audience buzz towards superhero films.

I agree with Algren, most actors would soon start moving out of the superhero roles and once that happens these movies will start declining.

Well, we don't know how important the actors really are - James Bond survived several recastings, as did BATMAN, the X-MEN were successfully recast too. It can work or it won't (see SPIDER-MAN and FANTASTIC FOUR)...

It's a huge difference between Michael Keaton playing Batman twice then the actor changing a three times per next movie and ... RDJ playing Stark for 10+ years multiple times. Batman became a character where the public were forced to accept a different actor. But Iron Man is Stark and Stark is RDJ. Same for Jackman as Wolverine. He played the role for 17 years. And Bond has been going for 50+ years ... NOW it's fine, but it wasn't always fine, and the franchise was never as big as superhero franchises are now. When Lazenby took over from Connery, its box office took a dive, so Connery came back and restored it. Moore took over, and it also went down (but to a lesser degree). The franchise only recovered from The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker on-wards. So there is noticeable audience displeasure when beloved actors depart from their iconic roles, which is why I conclude that the immediate reboot of Iron Man and Wolverine will be met with disdain.

Fact is, you and I don't know if a new cast would work or not. It'll be interesting to see what HAN SOLO will do next year...

And even if HAN SOLO fails or soars we still won't have a clue...

Speak for yourself, Mark. I'll know.

But Han Solo is not in a similar situation as the one we are describing. I think where Algren is coming from is that the movies will continue with a different actor. This is a spin-off of a younger version of Han Solo, I don't think Disney will continue this as a franchise or series of movies from this.

Agree completely especially regarding Iron Man and Wolverine.

Though I think Marvel are smart enough to let Iron Man rest for a while (after Avengers 4) and let the lesser known heroes (they've elevated most of them to A-list status) shine.

bump for obvious reasons...

Well.. this is an easy $150m+ opener without the two Garfield movies. So I guess there is a little fatigue, atleast in this franchise.