Why AVENGERS Director Doesn’t Blame ‘Superhero Fatigue’ for MCU’s Recent Flops
By Movieguide® Contributor
While nearly every Marvel movie to release in recent years has flopped, Joe Russo doesn’t believe “superhero fatigue” is to blame. He thinks the lackluster performances reflect a larger industry issue.
“I think it’s a reflection of the current state of everything,” Russo, who was responsible for superhero hits like CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR and AVENGERS: ENDGAME, told GamesRadar+. “It’s difficult right now, it’s an interesting time. I think we’re in a transitional period and people don’t know quite yet how they’re going to receive stories moving forward, or what kinds of stories they’re going to want.”
“There’s a big generational divide about how you consume media. There’s a generation that’s used to appointment viewing and going to a theater on a certain date to see something, but it’s aging out. Meanwhile the new generation are ‘I want it now, I want to process it now,’ then moving onto the next thing, which they process whilst doing two other things at the same time,” he continued.
“You know, it’s a very different moment in time than it’s ever been,” he added. “And so I think everyone, including Marvel, is experiencing the same thing, this transition. And I think that really is probably what’s at play more than anything else.”
This generation shift was accelerated by habits formed during the pandemic. People became used to consuming media in their homes rather than watching new movies at theaters. Even as studios have rolled back releasing movies in theaters simultaneously with streaming, many people will wait a month or two if it means they can watch from the comfort of their homes.
“I think that that the two-hour format, the structure that goes into making a movie, it’s over a century old now and everything always transition,” Russo said. “So, there is something happening again and that form is repetitive. But it’s hard to reinvent that form and I think this next generation is looking for more ways to tell their own stories that service their own sort of collective ADHD.”
In 2023, the box office’s collective gross pushed just over $9 billion, boosted at the last minute by WONKA. While this was the best year since the pandemic, it still fell over $2 billion short of 2019’s $11.4 billion.
While last year saw multiple blockbuster hits, these peaks fell short of the pre-pandemic numbers. BARBIE and THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE both grossed over $500 million domestically ($636 million and $575 million, respectively) but still fell strikingly short of pre-pandemic heights such as AVENGERS: ENDGAMES’s (2019) $858 million or BLACK PANTHER’s (2018) $700 million.
Nonetheless, audiences and studios do appear to be turning away from superheroes as video game adaptations become Hollywood’s newest gold rush. Nearly every popular game franchise seems to have announced a TV show or movie as Hollywood looks to cash in on its newest craze.
Movieguide® previously reported:
After over a decade of dominance at the box office, Hollywood is finally shifting away from the superhero genre as video game adaptations set up to be the industry’s next content well.
2023 was a monumental year for video game adaptations. While content in the genre had been trickling in during the years leading up, seven movies and 19 TV shows based on video game IPs exploded onto the scene. The overall gross for the genre more than doubled, as combined domestic ticket sales reached $712 million, up from $340 million in 2022.
Superhero movies, meanwhile, dropped dramatically as nearly every major release underperformed or flopped. Combined domestic ticket sales grossed $1.02 billion, a far cry from the $1.75 billion generated in 2022.
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