Despite what Kevin Feige says, superhero fatigue is becoming a very real concern for current audiences. With a non-stop stream of superhero content being offered almost everywhere, most are becoming disenchanted by comic book stories. The reason for this could be Marvel's failure to recreate the magic of building up and executing something on the same level as the Infinity Saga in their current stories, it could be the quality of the content has declined as is shown by Ant-man and the Wasp: Quantumania's poor critical reception and box office numbers, or it could just be that audiences have had too much and need something different. Director and writer James Gunn, who is currently in charge of the planning and creation of all future DC films seems to be aware of the current problems plaguing the genre and hopes to keep it alive, but will it be enough?
It's hard to say what will become of superhero films in the current landscape of movie-making, but the surprising success of recent video game adaptions might be a sign of what's to come. In a world where studios seem primarily interested in proven properties with an excited fan base already willing to pay for admission, it's not hard to imagine video game adaptations becoming the new superhero genre. Here's some evidence of that becoming a reality in the near future.
The Critical Success of HBO's The Last of Us
The Last of Us was a celebrated video game and is now an acclaimed TV show. Currently hailed by many as the greatest video game adaptation, the HBO series has been a massive success for both fans of the game and those who have never played it. More importantly, the show has legitimized video games as a space for meaningful narratives. Video games have often been seen as lesser than just about every other creative medium, a toy with the narrative heights of a mindless action film or a children's cartoon. This isn't baseless, but currently isn't true of many video games and hasn't been for some time. This has been a difficult argument to make for those who don't play video games and lack an understanding of their growth as a unique art form with distinct narrative capabilities.
The Last of Us was always been the best argument on behalf of video games for already being so similar to a prestige TV show. It's a well-written story with fully realized, human characters going through a very dramatic situation that works perfectly for a one-to-one TV adaptation. Now that it is a prestige TV show, many are realizing video games have real stories, and studios seeing this will realize how they could benefit by mining more from the wealth of video game stories. With another season of the show already on the way, there are sure to be many other prestige adaptations of other video games along with it.
The Financial Success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie
While the positive responses of audiences and critics are important to studios, money will always speak louder to executives when deciding what projects to finance next. The record-breaking success of Illumination's The Super Mario Bros. Movie has to have piqued the interest of Hollywood's major decision-makers in considering what movies they should try making next. Looking at the success of the Nintendo mascot film, it's easy to realize that it has to be entirely due to the brand being represented. Reviews for the film were not stellar, and many fans weren't exactly pleased with the casting choice for the famous plumber, yet the success seems to say that everyone showed up.
This is sure to usher in countless sequels for Mario and his friends, but also bring about more movies of similarly popular games for the studios that want some of that Mario money. It's difficult to say if any other game could bring in the same crowds as Nintendo's Super Mario, but we're sure to find out.
Upcoming Adaptations
The Last of Us and The Super Mario Bros. Movie have happened too recently to see the true effect they will have on the film industry, but we might already be in the process of video games becoming the new superhero genre, with the many adaptions on the way. James Wan and Jason Blum are adapting the popular multiplayer horror game Dead by Daylight, John Wick director Chad Stahelski is adapting the PlayStation samurai adventure Ghost of Tsushima into a new action movie, and Amazon Prime Video is making the popular post-apocalypse series Fallout into a TV show.
This might just be the start of a new wave of video game movies that dominate movie theaters and streaming content to become the new dominant media. Hopefully, we as audiences don't see these adaptions over-saturating the market as superhero movies have done before, and we are still able to see a wide range of excellent films, both original and adapted, that enrich this art form we all love so much.