Superhero movie backlash seems to be at a new height, the pendulum having swung after the likes of Marvel hit their peak with films like Avengers: Endgame (we’re still waiting on that DC masterpiece…). But it’s more than just the so-called “superhero fatigue”; it’s that audiences fully notice that quality certainly doesn’t equate to quantity. Now, Gwyneth Paltrow – who played Pepper Potts in 2008’s Iron Man, which jump started the whole superhero craze – has some thoughts on the matter.
Appearing on Hot Ones (via Deadline), Paltrow stated, “If I look at the industry as a whole, this big push into superhero movies…you can only make so many good ones that feel truly original, and yet they’re still always trying to reach as many people as possible, which sometimes hinders quality or specificity or real point of view.” Paul Dano, who dabbled in the superhero game for DC, also had similar sentiments of the quantity over quality debate.
Of course, there are still good superhero movies – which are certainly no easy feat to make – out there, but the high mark may have passed. In 2021, Eternals became the first entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to receive a “rotten” score on Rotten Tomatoes, followed by last year’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. While audience scores should be taken into account as well – after all, we’re the ones buying the tickets – certainly the dip in quality is there. Even if both had “fresh” audience ratings (which they do), are these movies really quality and enhancing the genre? Both tried to take on the responsibility of moving the MCU into new directions but were overpowered by their ambitions and overall weak storytelling.
Gwyneth Paltrow also reacted to American Fiction writer Cord Jefferson’s Oscar speech, in which he urged Hollywood to disperse the funds that might go to a $200 million project into several other films instead. “I absolutely understand where he’s coming from…You want the best chance to have a strong ROI [return on investment]. People put a lot of money into these things and they want them to be profitable…You get more diversity of art when there is less at stake and people can express their true voice and make a film the way they want to make it. Those are generally the more resonant ones.”
So are we out of “good ones” in the comic book world like Paltrow suggests? Is there an upswing on the horizon or are we truly looking at the “endgame” of the genre? Share your thoughts on the matter below.
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