Effects of Superhero movies on movie studios

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In this post I will discuss the reason that movie studios produce so many superhero movies using information from the article “James Franco Explains Why Studios Keep Remaking Superhero Films ” by Melia Robinson on Business Insider. I believe that movie studios continually produce these movies because the belief that people will always go see them because they have that superhero label on them.

In the article, James Franco talks about his experience in superhero movies, as he was in the original Spider man Series as Harry Osbourne, and what he thinks of them now. The article is centered talking about the recent release of the newest Superman film Man of Steel that starred Henry Cavil as our favorite Kyrptonian. Many people went and saw this film even though there have been plenty of Superman films before it, yet this one still produced “a record breaking $128.6 million” its first weekend in theaters. Many would believe that this film would be great and incredibly successful, however this isn’t the case. As the article states “critics weren’t wowed” and only “56% of reviewers liked it.” But this film dropped a 100 million dollars in one weekend and people didn’t even like it that much. This is what draws movie studios to try and produce these movies because of the revenue they can bring in, even if the movie isn’t as successful as they hoped it would be. James Franco backs this point by saying that since these movies have such a large financial upside “everyone from  studios to filmmakers are going to want to get in on making comic-book movies.” Not all movies are going to be home run hitters like The Avengers who dropped over 1 billion dollars in profit, but a 100 million is a pretty good chunk of change in itself so no wonder superhero movies are being produced left and right.

Moreover, this is even true if the movies are remakes such as the Superman and Spiderman series. Many Superman and Spiderman movies were made in the early 2000’s and before this. Yet, reboots such as Man of Steel or The Amazing Spiderman and being produced now and in the near future and having large amounts of success. So why would movie studios use all this money and time making movies that already have similar if not the exact same theme as the previous ones. Simply because they have the superhero label on them. While comic book lovers may argue that The Amazing Spiderman and Spiderman are completely different stories, that plays no factor into why normal movie goers would go see it. They don’t really care about a different story, they just wanna see their favorite webslinger fly across the big screen. Even though the first Amazing Spiderman only produced “more than 260 million” which was less than any of the original trilogy, they have 3 sequels already planned to hit the big screen until 2018. These movies weren’t nearly as successful as the first trilogy yet they have already planned to have a total of 4 movies made just because of the pure financial incentive that these movies bring.

In conclusion, as a large superhero fan myself, I will most likely see any movie that has a super hero label on it even if they aren’t that popular, such as Ant-Man. Many people feel the same way as me because these movies are usually very well done and really cool with all of the special effects produced in them. Therefore, these draw large audiences even if it is the second round of these movies, as evidenced in the article. And with both Marvel and DC having many movies planned into the future including highly anticipated Captain America: Civil War and Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice, these movies are going to be popular for a very very long time.

    In the future I plan to research the the merchandise that these types of movies bring.