Shocker…
I found Afterlife underwhelming and this looks like more of the same.
I have to admit I agree.
And they should have decided: this is the next generation of Ghostbusters, and then closed the book on the old guard. Now they seem to be back as well, probably only as cameos - but still they are in the trailer to sell this to old farts like me.
But it has Paul Rudd. So…
It’s over:
A old review of mine of Ghostbusters Afterlife. Enjoyable, but too slow moving in the first half. One thing I’m getting tired of in comeback movies is when a villain that they already faced, and the younger generation has to beat them because they’re the only ones that can do it. Plot is also a rehash of the first one. Decent acting. If you’re looking for nostalgia, or a decent movie to kill 2 hours, you can do worse.
Since then, it’s really becoming hard to respect Bill Murray. He’s the one that caused the 3rd film to be delayed for so many years. And his behind the scenes personality is catching up with him. However, I am looking forward to the snowy setting. It feels fresh for a Ghostbusters story.
I have always been more of a DC fan than a Marvel one. I especially love Batman. But what Marvel achieved from Iron Man through End Game was phenomenal IMHO. To be clear, none of these movies are competing with the Godfather (or pick your top movie). What they did do was make about 20 very consistent action movies, that were nicely interwoven and with some subtle seeds planted for a payoff later. DC tried, and largely failed on that front.
While I take my hat off to them, I never expected superheroes to dominate the movie scene forever. I am not swearing off Marvel but my advice to DC and Marvel would be: superheroes had a great run that is likely over for a long time. You can still make superhero movies, but expecting to keep up the frequency of the past 15-20 years is folly. We need to explore some other genres and get writers to create things that are totally new.
Original ideas would be great.
But Disney needs to milk Marvel for steady revenue, and Warner needs DC to finally succeed.
The studios and streamers played their violins for the last months about their supposed lack of finances (to pay for all those pesky creatives), it would be only safe to assume that no studio will bet on original, now even less than before.
The question is whether there is big revenue to milk. I think we will have superhero films for the remainder of my life. I am skeptical if there is enough interest to support more than 2 superhero movies in a year unless the budgets are relatively low. There is no sound methodology to crystal ball gazing… so we shall see.
I agree with you completely.
But I fear the studios will keep on doing what they’ve been doing forever: repeat what’s worked before - even if it is not working anymore.
Superhero movies would have to fail so often and so miserably - plus something else would have to succeed so much that it could be safely copied.
The interesting aspect is: Disney was banking on Marvel and Star Wars to be safe bets for decades. Both seem to have run out of gas.
What now?
Genres have their cycles where they hit the cultural sweet spot for a time (Noir series, Western, Musical, SciFi, so on) and then keep their core audience until they are once again the Next Big Thing. The difficulty for studios and producers is how to interest the average, neutral part of the audience they must see some star in some costume as some super hero - yet again. No doubt the hardcore fans will turn out to see it. But why should folks who have already seen it all before?
Event character is something that doesn’t usually lend itself too often to a particular genre. And without that pull it’s hard to generate the necessary revenue for keeping the pace and quality up.
The problem isn’t just that by now every big production seems to be some caped/masked superthing - but that they are all so similar, so conventional. It’s by now a genre defined so narrowly along the lines of the Marvel-tone (c) ™ that creativity and superheroes seem mutually exclusive. In the long run even bigger fans find such stagnation tiring.
Well, there was a time when people thought that the high time of the Western genre would last forever, no-one could imagine that the day would come when audiences worldwide wouldn’t care for them at all. We saw that happening, so there’s hope that the reign of Marvel et al. won’t last forever.
And the Western genre had the advantage that you could still make various sub-genres, be it drama or bona fide action, rom-com or biopic, comedy or gorefest, something I’ve yet to see in the Superhero genre. In that genre, all you can make are… well… superhero movies. And sequels.
Michael Cimino killed the Western as a main genre with Heaven’s Gate. Not to mention a different generation wanting something different. As for the Superhero genre, Steven Spielberg warned people that it would end due to overexposure. He was ripped on unfairly by Zack Snyder Cultists and MCU crazies. More and more, he has been proven correct. History has subtle ways of repeating itself.
The western genre has been called dead at least twice before the studio killer Heavens´s Gate. And how great where the ones that came after it? Silverado, Dances with Wolves, Unforgiven, Salvation, Appaloosa, Django Unchained, 3:10 to Yuma to name a few…i think if they only make one or two superhero movies every 2 to 5 years quality will go up and the audience too…The Boys showed with some risk taking you can make something with superheroes people still watch
Most genres, after achieving peak saturation, survive as a niche offering, with fewer, but usually high-quality entries.
I think that for mass audiences there is only a handful of super heroes they are familiar with and they enjoy.
Those have gotten their movies already. The rest is just the hardcore fan segment, and Disney/Marvel made the mistake of assuming they can turn every character into big box office bonanzas.
They are also banking too heavily on live action remakes of their core USP: animated originals. Once they are done, what is left: remaking the live action remake of The Lion King?
Mickey Mouse, played by Ryan Gosling.
Shut uuuuuup…
They might hear you…