 Welcome to the Adam Does Movies podcast. I'm Adam and today's topic, superhero fatigue. Have we finally hit it? Has it set in? The thing Scorsese, Spielberg, and so on were saying was going to hit long, long ago. All the way back when Dark Knight Rises came out, I was hearing this. But yet here we are in 2023 and these films keep coming out. They don't stop. The reason I'm talking about this today is because I asked people on my YouTube community tab at Adam Does Movies what they wanted the topic to be on. My wife suggested talk Christopher Nolan films. Oppenheimer's Out, It's Fantastic, If That's Your Cup of Tea. It's a three hour movie with a lot of talking and I understand some people are like, get to the point already. I found it incredibly fascinating through and through. I have a review up on the channel. If you haven't seen it, please check it out. It's worth your time. And so is the movie in my humble opinion. It's a fair point. I should talk about Christopher Nolan movies. But the thing is, I don't know if I can sustain it for 35, 40 minutes without really diving into the history of his stuff and how he approaches film. But there is a point to be made there. And the reason people keep going out to see Christopher Nolan films, unlike most other directors, is because he has name recognition. And that name is synonymous with quality. It's synonymous with big, bombastic films, even if the topic is as simple as a documentary biopic of sorts on a guy who invented the atomic bomb. He still finds a way to infuse brilliant sound design, to infuse amazing IMAX level visuals on the big screen and to get some of the best actors in the business to put in the work. Not a lot of directors in 2023 are emitting that same kind of response. They're not eliciting that same sort of reaction from the audience. Spielberg at one point was right there. David Fincher, I think, at one point was there. James Cameron obviously still is, but he comes out with a movie every 20 years now. And I think when I look at the superhero franchise, that's really how the fatigue has set in. Quantity over quality. When Iron Man came out in 2008, they took their time with it. They cast the right guy to play Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr., who also is an Oppenheimer. It was nice to see him again. Perfectly cast for the role, it's been stated many times over that without him, this whole thing would not have worked. And I agree. John Favre, as the director, certainly helped as well. He made sure that this vision lined up with what they were thinking for the MCU, which was going to be a somewhat grounded flick with some good witty dialogue, some hard hitting action, and just an overall adult look behind it. Of course, 2008 isn't the first time we had superhero movies. Those will span back to, you know, well beyond even the Superman films, the four of those, which ended in the worst possible light possibly. Like, Superman, The Quest for Peace is just so terrible. And then there was Supergirl. We had Tankgirl. And then we would slowly make our way to the sophisticated kind of comic book movies we've come to expect now, with X-Men by Brian Singer, which came out in, I do have it up here, 2000. And a couple years before that we had Blade with Wesley Snipes. Awesome movie. And that was another one that really treated the material with some respect. It was a hard-to-are film about a vampire hunter who was a half-vampire himself. They made a couple of those movies. Blade Trinity is, again, one of the worst things ever. Just one of the many times superheroes will lose their way in the course of appeasing the box office, rushing the movies out before they're actually fully baked. And now here we are with the MCU. Spider-Man. And what year was that? 2002? 2001? 2002 I have, yep. Spider-Man comes out, and that really kind of seals it, I think, for a lot of studios. Many people harp that Blade doesn't get the credit. Well, I don't think it deserves the credit. I don't think X-Men deserves the credit either. It's really Spider-Man that brought in the box office and opened the eyes of Marvel to say, oh shit, we should probably take our properties and start putting them on the big screen, because at that time, Marvel didn't own a lot of its film stuff. It was selling it off to Fox and Sony and different companies, because they were hemorrhaging money. And so Kevin Feige, however you say it, he took a big calculated risk and said, alright, we're going to start producing these in-house. And that's how we got Iron Man. That's how we got the Incredible Hulk, not to be confused with Eric Bona's Hulk, which I don't care for, but I like Eric Bona as Hulk. I thought he was the best of the business. Iron Man would really be a movement that would set all of this in motion. We would get a series, we'd get phases, actually. This is the brilliance. This is the real genius of what Marvel did. They set out ahead of time to make this a cinematic universe at the beginning. But they didn't put it in your face. They just had these little end teasers where Nick Fury would come out, wink, tip the hat to the comic book audience. And before you know it, they have transitioned a whole new group of moviegoers into that space. Comic books start flying off the shelves. Video games are getting made. It is really becoming a movement. And we've had a bunch of these over the years, of course. There's always generations of different types of movie genres getting the spotlight. You had the Westerns. You had the action vehicles with Arnold and Stallone and, you know, Arnold and Schwarzenegger. It's the same person. Yeah. I'm on the fly doing this by myself. Occasionally I'm going to stumble upon my own stupidity. But you get my point. This ebbs and flows. Films change. Ideas change. But now here we are in 2023. Oppenheimer and Barbie. Barbenheimer come out the same weekend. They both pull in massive audiences and big numbers. That wouldn't sound so impressive if it weren't for the fact that just a couple weeks earlier, the Flash bombed at the box office. And a few weeks before that, or months before that, Flash 2 bombed at the box office. And before that, Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantum Shitia didn't do very well at the box office. I don't want to say it bombed because I'm not actually sure where those numbers ended up going. But I know it underperformed for sure. And the same goes for the Little Mermaid. Definitely underperformed compared to what it costs to make and market. I'm sure it'll end up making money for Disney in the long run because of merchandising and, you know, all the other things they do to turn a buck. But the audience is finally starting to speak up. They're starting to wise up to the fact that we're sick of it. We're sick of these shot-for-shot Disney remakes. We're sick of the cash grabs. And we are really getting fed up with the Marvel and DCU nonsense that seems to just churn and burn now. The quality has gone so far down. And yes, there are still exceptions. There are still some great gems there. James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3. I thought was fantastic. A great way to end that trilogy. But that's really, again, kind of like Christopher Nolan. You have a director who's very consistent. He has a style to his movies. He's got a tone. He's got themes he usually plays with and actors he usually uses. And some people will say, I don't like his stuff, and that's perfectly fine. But for everyone that doesn't, there's a whole lot of people that do, including the higher-ups at Warner, who put him in charge of the DCU going forward. So after Blue Beetle, that's absolutely gonna bomb. He looks pretty terrible. And after Aquaman 2, I wouldn't be surprised if that bombs as well. We're gonna get a fresh Superman movie. The question is, will anyone care when it comes out? My thoughts? Yes. I think people have gotten savvy enough now that they know what's going on with the DCU. A couple months back, a year back, I would have argued against myself and said, no. General moviegoers don't have any idea what's happening with the DCU. And there are still plenty of people, even my wife, if I told her, or if I asked her, hey, what's the flash part of? MCU or DCU, she probably wouldn't have any idea. It's all kind of the same nonsense to her. But the people that are paying attention are really paying attention. And they know that these next few movies that are coming out are just kind of pointless because the DCU is over. Now, I'm not in that camp personally. I take each movie at face value. I take it as a separate entity. And I really wish more people would. But we've been trained now by the studios to expect these large world-building properties. And so it's really the fault of the studios for putting that in our heads, for implanting that idea that, hey, it's not so much about this movie. It's about what it's leading to, what it's branching out to. And I think that's just, that's an unwise thing to do. So for me, the DCU still has some fun movies here and there. And I'm going to give them a shot. I'm just some sick of the superhero crap altogether. And when it works, it's kind of like, okay, well, that was a fun time. And I'm going to move on with my day. I don't sit back and stew over it or kind of like unpack what I saw like with Oppenheimer. It's all just surface level bullshit. It's, you know, it's window dressing. It's a couple hours on a roller coaster. And then I go home and I wait for the next ride to come out because that's what most of these superhero movies are. They're just rides. And rides can be fun for sure. But after a while, you feel a little empty and you feel like you've been on this one a thousand times. So why would I bother wasting more money on it? And that's where I think a lot of these movies are starting to hurt. Is the audiences are saying, yeah, we've been here. The Marvels comes out. I saw the second trailer. I thought it looked terrible. And I'm not even against that. You know, I don't have any problem with Brie Larson or any of those females in there. I actually kind of was interested because it seemed like something a little different, a little campier, a little sillier for the whole family. Fair enough. But the trailer was just so mediocre across the board. Didn't have any laughs. The effects are, of course, humdrum at this point. Nothing has any weight to it at all. It all is shot in front of a green screen or a digital screen, whatever they're using now. So I just don't know what I'm connecting to with that film. And it's not fun and light and creative enough, such as the new Ninja Turtles movie coming out. And it doesn't have anything, you know, it doesn't seem like it has anything to say, like even the Barbie movie, which could have been a very paint by numbers picture that ended up being a lot more, you know, feminist, a lot more of a voice is being shared there. Of course, it was smashed over our heads to the point where my brain was bleeding on my ear. Still, at least it's doing something, right? At least it's trying to put out messages and trying to entertain you in a different way. Whereas with the MCU, it's so damn basic. It's so boring. We already hit the crescendo with Endgame. We already saw Thanos. We already saw him get taken down. And afterwards, it's just been a series of multiversal nonsense. People love Spider-Man. They loved No Way Home. I didn't love that movie. I liked that movie. Fine enough. It's pulling teeth to get me to watch it again. I'm sorry. It really is. I watched it a second time at home with my family who hadn't seen it. They didn't have that same visceral reaction I did when the other Spider-Man showed up. And I think part of that emotion that it's playing off of isn't even necessarily that, oh man, Andrew Garfield's here from the amazing Spider-Man movies. They're so good. Most people universally think those movies kind of suck. It's just Andrew Garfield is a very likable actor. So just seeing him again as Spider-Man, it's more of a good for you. It's so nice to see him in a better movie where he's Spider-Man. And of course, Tobes, you know, everybody likes the Sam Raimi films, or most people do. So seeing him show up, it's just pulling at the heartstrings, pulling at the emotions. But if you look at the substance of Spider-Man No Way Home, there's none. It has one of the dumbest plots ever. Worth Tom Holland's character, Peter, is convincing Dr. Strange to make everyone forget about him so that his buddies can get into a good college. You're telling me you can just write a recommendation? You're telling me you can just talk with the... Well actually, we know he could have because it turns out all he had to do was ask originally the Dean of the admissions. And she would have let him in. But yeah, it was just, it's just so silly and so dumb. And that's okay. Again, if you're just going for kids' movies, you could do worse, right? But I think, and this is where the MCU has a problem, it branded itself as a more adult experience. As I'm talking, I realized, oh my gosh, you know what? I was freaking out. I thought maybe I wasn't recording audio. I almost had a small heart attack. Let me continue. It branded itself originally as something for older people. And I don't mean adults. I mean, you know, early teens and up for Iron Man, it's got some grit there. It's got a little bit of heaviness to it, some swearing, some debauchery. And it kind of stayed that way for all of phase one with Captain America, with Thor, and those movies all didn't hit for me. Most of them actually, I thought, were just kind of, yeah, it was fine. It was all right. They were good starts, though. They were decent introductions, good enough, I would say. And it really hit its stride, of course, with the Avengers. And phase two, outside of Iron Man 3, which is, I'm sorry, is phase, I get my phases confused. Sorry about that. I'm not an expert in the MCU. Whatever phase is Iron Man 2, pretty rocky. That might have been phase one still. I do not like that film. Anyway, phase two and three, damn consistently good stuff come out there, outside of Thor 2. But we have the Winter Soldier in the mix at one point. We have Guardians of the Galaxy, volume one and two. We have Ant-Man and then Ant-Man and the Wasp, again, they're like the sea unit characters. But their movies should have been worse than they were. I wasn't expecting anything out of Ant-Man. And I was pleasantly surprised. And I think it's a lot to do with them still taking their time to find the right people for the job, get the right actors and the right roles. At some point, they decided after Endgame that their new mission was going to be, let's just kind of do more stunt casting with roles. Let's spend less time on scripts and more time on more obscure properties. Let's really push the female angle now so that we have a more equal playing field, men, women. Some of this stuff is perfectly fine. But when you announce it as the only goal or as the main focus, you're kind of disservicing the fans that were there before. And you're kind of disservicing your own properties at that point. And you're undercutting what you had previously done. Not only that, they make jokes at their own expense when you get She-Hulk in the mix. And Captain Marvel and some of these women, they're constantly pointing out and kind of making fun of some of the guys and the stupid decisions that were made. Like, oh, yeah, Captain America, he's a propagandist, he's just a tool for the army. Well, yeah, that was kind of the point of that movie even. Like, he's in on it too. So it's kind of unfair to undercut the guy when that's the point. But I think you understand what I'm getting at. Marvel got too big for its britches. The MCU did. It got too bloated. And the final nail for me, because I do think this thing is pretty much dead, unless they can prove otherwise with the new Avengers films coming out, I have no interest, to be honest. I think they sunset all the good characters a little bit prematurely. And now we're left with kind of the sea cast. But when they started doing the Disney plus TV shows, that was it. I was out. I was able to keep up with the movies fine. But when you start throwing out eight to 10 episodes of Hawkeye, of Loki, of Secret Invasion, who's even watching Secret Invasion? I have zero interest in watching that show. And that's pretty telling because I like the MCU. I was on board for quite a long time. And if I'm off, I think there's a lot of people that are as well. And that's only like three or four of the men that is She-Hulk, which is another bizarre one because it's kind of Deadpool-esque. But I think it's also continuing some of the plot points and introducing characters that previously weren't in the mix. And it's canon. But yet it's not. I don't know. It's completely messed up. And I heard that the new Marvel's film is relying on people watching Secret Invasion to fill in some of the gaps, watching the Kamala Khan show. I don't even remember that was called Miss Marvel. It was so lame. I could only make it three episodes in with my family and we all checked out. Then you have Moon Knight also. There's so much. And most people can't keep up with it. And that's why we hit a point now where audiences are looking for something new. They're going out to Barbie. They're going out to Oppenheimer. And that's a great thing. It really is a great thing when we can kind of purge some of this bullshit out of the way. And again, reflecting back, Fox put out a lot of X-Men movies. There was other movie properties coming out pre-MCU that were pretty damn good. I really like a lot of the X-Men films. X-1 and X-2 being amongst some of my favorite comic book movies, more so X-2. X-Men 1, just a decent starter course. And then of course Days of Future Past. If you haven't seen Days of Future Past, Rogue Cut, do yourself a favor and find it and watch it. It's really good. And yes, people are like, oh, the Rogue Cut only adds what, one scene and a couple little extra parts? No, it adds a decent amount and it also really changes how the ending plays out. Plus, Rogue was always one of the main characters in the movie franchise. The first film followed her specifically. So it was incredibly shitty that Fox decided to hide her behind a paywall. Because if you recall, and some of you might not know, but when Days of Future Past hit theaters, Rogue was on the poster. She had her own solo poster. But then it was announced before the movie came out that her scenes were all cut and they would come out on a Rogue-specific version of the DVD and Blu-ray as a total cash grab move. So I liked the original movie a lot and then when that version came out, it was even better. 100% better. So yeah, definitely check out Rogue Cut. But my point is I really liked a lot of these movies. You have Hellboy 1 and 2, another solid superhero set, and then they never finished the trilogy or Reboot, which was terrible, with the dude from Stranger Things. Forget his name right now. Hopper, whatever the actor's name is. You have really bad ones as well. Daredevil, Spawn, Electra. Some people, I joke about this a lot. They say, there's a director's cut of Daredevil that's way better. You should watch it, Adam. And then I just look at him and I say, does it still have the scene where they fight on Teeter Totters? And when they just look down, I say, yeah, we're done here. We're absolutely done here. On the DC side, I don't know. They're animated movies, I guess, are just fantastic. I've never actually watched them. I don't have the time or the real, real, I guess, care. What I have watched for animated, though, superhero-wise, is Invincible. I freaking love that show. Is that DC or MC? I don't even know if it's either. It might be its own thing. The Amazon Prime show, Invincible, they just showed the teaser for the new season. They're taking forever on this thing. And I was told that it's eight episodes and they're splitting it in half, so we're only getting four when the season comes out. And then we're going to have to wait months and months again for the rest of season two. That's ridiculous. And that makes me sad. The Boys was another superhero show I was watching, also on Amazon Prime. I think that that show's kind of lost its way, but the first couple seasons are fantastic. And I'm sure they're going to up the odds and up the craziness in the new season again. Maybe they can kind of pull me back in. But this last season, it didn't really do it. So there is plenty of good superhero material, both old and new. We don't have to rely solely on the MCU or the DCU. There was stuff before these universes existed. That's plenty good. I named a few. There's more. I'm trying to think what comes to mind. Obviously, Logan is top of the line for me. I absolutely adore Logan. I think it was a great send-off to the character. And of course, he's coming back now in some form, which, you know, whatever. It is what it is, I guess. I'll just take it for what they provide. Obviously, the Deadpool movies are great. Dark Knight, one through three. That trilogy is fantastic. But we bring it back to Christopher Nolan again to round things out. I like Dark Knight Rises, too. I know a lot of people harp on it, but I think Dark Knight Rises is a solid ending. It's definitely the dumbest of the three. It's got some pretty silly stuff going on. Kind of some shenanigans about how Batman just kind of apparates in and out of locations. Overall, though, a solid ending to a really stellar trilogy. That's Christopher Nolan in a nutshell, though. The guy knows how to build up a property and really stick the landing. If you look at a film like Inception and Dunkirk and Interstellar, he really likes to play with time in his films and kind of tees the ending ahead of time. I think all three of those movies tees the ending ahead of time. Maybe not Dunkirk, but the other two really open up, like, Pandora's Box. And as the film progresses, he starts to show you exactly what's happening here. Like, oh, that's why that happened when that happened. And just a little bit more Christopher Nolan praise and appreciation. Absolutely check out The Prestige if you haven't. I think that's one of his best movies still. Criminally underrated. Or underappreciated, I should say. I don't hear a lot of people talk about that one. Hugh Jackman's in the mix. You got Christian Bale. So you got Batman versus Wolverine. And it's definitely worth your time. And to see where that movie goes from a character standpoint, it's pretty damn ingenious. Okay, thank you guys for watching. This is the episode. I talked about the kind of the rise and fall of the superhero properties. I don't see them, you know, I guess to kind of put a pin in it. As far as the MCU goes, I don't see them recovering anytime soon. I think Marvel's is probably not going to do great. And I'm terrible at predictions. So take that for what you will. I'm really bad at predictions. The Marvel's is probably going to be a box office smash hit. I don't think it is though. And same with Blue Beetle and same with Aquaman 2. I think all three of these movies are kind of kind of suffer. But the real telling thing, the thing we can point to and say, yep, it's official. Fatigue has set in. Superhero movies need to sunset a little bit. They need to calm down. We need to get away from the universe and focus on the solo aspect and just make a good damn movie again. When James Gunn's Superman comes out, if that thing does not succeed, it's going to be a lot of trouble for people, especially James Gunn. But James Gunn's one of those guys like Nolan where I think he does bring people to the theaters for his type of storytelling. And that's going to be a telling story on its own. All right. There you have it. Let me know your thoughts if you're on YouTube in the comments. What do you think of this? Do you think the fatigue really is real now? All these years later? Or is it just another blog post of a guy yelling at the screen and people can either listen or not? It's possible as well. Who knows? It's all speculation. Let me know. Please subscribe to the channel, like the video, and if you're on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, follow there or do what you ever have to do to keep up with all the new videos. I post them every single Monday, 9 a.m. on those platforms, and then I do a watch along, typically around 11 on YouTube. I hope to see you there. All right, take care.