The problem with 300 million dollar movies is that they suck up a lot of oxygen and resources. Other, smaller (better?) films don't get made.

sure superhero movies are generally dumb, but some are a decent spectacle for some reason or another, and it irks me to hear them discussed as art masterpieces which they clearly aren't. they're dumb, cheesy, ridiculous, and often intolerable. like rollercoasters and funnel cakes, they can be fun but make you wanna vomit.

in the case of wonder woman, don't go watch it as a "serious film," which would be absurd and a disappointment. go watch it instead so you can stare at the magnificence that is gal gadot, and bask in her glory.



you know you wanna.

Sure, but at the dollar theater. Don't pay full price. Just encourages them.

do you honestly feel like there's a shortage of non-superhero films right now?

I'm not being a dick. I'm seriously asking.

there's a lack of smaller, well-written movies that take more risks, hell the fuck yeah. i mean. where does one begin. the state of the film industry is quite dismal. yes, honestly, there's a huge shortage of good movies for grownups.

the good writing is gone mostly to TV these days. i find myself watching more Tv and ignoring "film" as of late because it's mostly shit, and has little to offer outside of pure spectacle.

Watched Doctor Strange yesterday after having 4 cavities repaired and two wisdom teeth pulled. it was a fun flick.

Easier said than done. It's on here, it's on my Facebook feed, it's in the magazines you read, it's in the adverts that are EVERYWHERE.

To ignore something like Kim Kardashian is easy. Just avoid the rag newspapers and the tv show there you go. Comic book movies are able different thing altogether.

On average, I watch 30 mins of TV during dinner; binge-watch a TV show w/ wife on Friday night; one or two movies w/ wife on Saturday night; and MAYBE watch a show or movie on my own a night or two during the week. But that's rare. Movies and TV are lower on my list of hobbies and come after video games and comic books.

SO... maybe I don't know as much about the landscape of films.

But I guess I just don't see that smaller high-risk movies would get made more if like, Marvel stopped making movies. And I feel like I've seen some really well done awesome shit that wasn't about superheroes recently. Arrival was amazing for instance. Thought provoking. Well written. Is that not "small" enough or "high risk" enough? (again, not condescending - seriously clarifying).

I guess again - I just don't really see that superhero movies are really blocking the films from existing the you guys are claiming they are. Maybe I'm totally wrong. My brain just doesn't really see it that way. If you're really looking for small high-risk movies, I don't think WB is making those no matter what the Justice League is up to. Y'know?

This pretty much.

Now I'm not looking at the previous decades with rose tinted glasses cos there's shit no matter what decade you look at. However, where are the young Scorceses, Coppolas, Ashbys? Studios aren't gonna take risks on mid-range priced films that are something different. And they're sure as hell not gonna put the money like they do for Batman to advertise them.

Put it this way, can you imagine The Godfather being made today? No fucking way.

I mostly agree. But, a couple of things come to mind. One is that there are still an awful lot of great movies being made in other countries besides the US. I know the big $ is being spent on filmmaking here, but still, there's some awfully good stuff out there, much more than in the past. And, regarding TV, there's a lot of abysmal crap on besides the few genuinely good things.

They really are. Can you think of a period where film studios were so reliant on sequels, remakes and the rest than now?

It used to be sequels were diminishing returns for studios. From the horror movies like Nightmare on elm Street, even to the Superman films. Now they push three-all sequels so much and they make money why WOULD they try and make these other odd films?

All studios care about is is opening weekends and the film making a profit. Quality is dead to them.

I see you're problem - you're on FB!

For some reason I'm thinking of ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF A SPOTLESS MIND. I saw it in a big theater in a small town. That was just a few years ago. I seriously doubt that would happen today.

I think that's a statement you could make about the film industry period. I don't see that it's because of superhero films. Any genre.

But you can't deny that the success of the marvel films has caused other studios to look at them and want that level of money coming in. The idea of a "universe" is appealing cos the money can be phenomenal.

Whether it be the DC films, and now there's the monster universe with The Mummy and the rest of them coming in. That's three of the what four major studios out there?

Hollywood film industry is not concerned with whether americans love the films. there are like 300 million americans and not all of them go to movies. There are over a a billion Indians, and over a billion Chinese, and hundreds of millions of them go watch these hollywood action films.

Yes. The whole movie universe thing was no doubt something that other studios saw Marvel doing successfully and wanted to emulate. But if Marvel stopped making superhero movies, those otehr studios would still do this.

If Marvel and DC and Hasbro and etc all stopped making superhero movies, then other genres from other studios (IE: The Mummy) would still do this.

So, superhero movies dying in a fire would not actually fix what is bother you.

I win. Haha.

I would rather watch superhero movies than movies where normal humans are supposed to do impossible things

well yes you can't blame superhero movies for the ongoing infantilization of adult life and tastes

this is a transgenerational thing. baby boomers wanted to be forever 21, gen-xers embraced the adult cartoon, and milennials want to stay as preteens for life

it's economics/history/the decline of western civilization or whatever

i blame christianity. and breakfast cereals. and helicopter parents.

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not really. i think it's economics, in the end.

now you're making me feel bad about myself, symbols. Thanks.