User blog:Dorkpool/Oversaturation

A week or so ago, DC announced their slate of upcoming superhero movies, which include Justice League, Green Lantern, Flash, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman, to name a few. Yesterday, Marvel announced their slate of Phase Three superhero movies, which inlcude Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Thor: Ragnarok, Doctor Strange, Black Panter, Captain America: Civil War, and Avengers 3 and 4, which is a two part event known as Infinity War. Fox is releasing X-Men: Apocalypse, Deadpool (squee!), and Fantastic Four. And Sony is releasing Sinister Six, an unnamed movie starring a female superhero (please be Black Cat), and Amazing Spider-Man 3...at some point.

Now, this is all awesome on so many levels, but I have to pose a question here: Is this too much? Is the market for superhero movies being oversaturated?

Now, presently, we're experiencing a superhero movie fad. Despite what some say, this is most definitely a fad. Unfortunately. And most fads end (and are later adopted by hipsters). And I'm pretty sure that releasing all these movies within such a short time frame may end this fad much more quickly, especially if the movies suck.

In fact, movie suckage is what worries me about the non-Disney Marvel movies. Disney Marvel had the idea for a shared universe beforehand, and planned all this out. Fox, Sony, and Warner Bros. are just responding to the shared universe thing, and rushing out something without meticulous planning. And for the most part, when work is rushed, it's not all that good.

And, of course, there's what's known as "Iron Man 2 Syndrome"; basically, overstuffing a movie in order to lead to a shared universe. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 suffered from this, as I mentioned in another post. Anyway, I'm sure that a few of the upcoming superhero movies will suffer from Iron Man 2 Syndrome (Batman vs. Superman, at the very least). The thing about Iron Man 2 Syndrome is that it leads to, at best, mediocre movies. Movie goers don't want mediocrity, and comic book fans, who judge these movies harshly, definitely don't want it. And as I previously noted, mediocre and bad movies lead to a movie fad ending more quickly.

Now, I'm not saying that the movies are going anywhere anytime soon. We'll still get them to, at least by my estimates, 2020 or so. After that, well, we're going to have to find out.

Either way, I'm excited for these movies, and you should be too. Because, at the very least, Age of Ultron looks great.