Comic Book Movie and TV Show Bubble

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So, so many these past few years...

 

So how long with this trend last?  Are we at a peak or is there room to go? 

 

It looks like it got wings after the success of the X-men and Nolan Batman series in the late 2000s.  That was the catalyst.

[Michael*]

It seems there’s been a bit of a panic at the thought of all the new comic book adaptations due to be released in the not-too-distant future, although I'm not sure why. Hollywood currently produces somewhere in the vicinity of 600 films per year, around six or seven of which are superhero stories, so roughly 1% of Hollywood films are comic book adaptations. That's really not that many, and no more of an issue than all the romcoms and horrors the industry is continually making - if the stories they’re telling are good, there's no problem. If they're not, well, there's plenty of other stuff out there to watch instead.

 

In terms of the ongoing nature of how Marvel and DC choose to tell their stories, there'll obviously come a tipping point for their respective business models eventually, and it'll probably be at the end of the decade when they've played their trump cards in ‘Infinity War’ and ‘Justice League’. They'll have to find a way to keep things fresh afterwards and not let standards slip (something I believe Kevin Feige has admitted to worrying about), which could prove to be an uphill battle. Spider-Man and Batman have already shown themselves to be fallible in terms of box office performance, and the likes of the Avengers and the X-Men could suffer just as much if casual audiences have to struggle through multiple lesser adaptations. If that happens, I would fully expect mainstream filmmakers to start looking down the road towards the next big thing, whether it be video game movies or something else.

 

Overall though, the genre has basically replaced big budget action franchises in the minds of most studios. There'll always be a market for pure entertainment and popcorn flicks, and comic book movies have so many advantages over traditional action. Tons of existing source material to work with, and built-in fanbases comprised of very passionate people who, if they like what they see, will spread the word. The only other thing I could imagine killing the genre completely would be a lack of interest from said die-hards, but quite honestly, I don't know if I could see that happening any time soon.