This week nerds of all kinds across the Web rejoiced as Christopher Nolan revealed the title of his next Batman film—""The Dark Knight Rises,"" set for release on July 20, 2012. Although Nolan has said it won't feature the Riddler or Mr. Freeze, it's a good bet it will be a phenomenal film, if its predecessors are any indication.
Superheroes have been an integral part of our country's zeitgeist over the last hundred years. I would even venture to draw a parallel between the way our culture holds the stories of classic superheroes like Spiderman, Batman and Superman to the way Ancient Rome and Greece held their myths of great heroes. Perhaps Homer was merely the Stan Lee of ancient Greece. After all, despite often being relegated as purely nerdy subject matter, the classic mythos of these characters are known almost universally in the United States. My mom has never read a comic book in her life, but she could tell you exactly how Peter Parker got his Spidey sense and probably name a few of his more prominent foes. Thus, superheroes have played their
role in our film history as well.
The Christopher Reeve ""Superman"" movies are iconic pieces of film history in their own right. And the first
Tim Burton ""Batman"" movie broke numerous box-office records when it opened in 1989. But then in the '90s the later Joel Schumacher ""Batman"" movies bombed critically and financially, and studios shunned
superhero movies as box office poison. Things changed again when CGI (computer generated imagery) progressed and became a staple in the film industry. Suddenly, fantastical tales of superheroes, which would have been impossibly challenging to film before, became feasible. What could only have been portrayed in cartoons and comics previously could now be visualized in live-action film. In 2002, after being stuck in development hell for decades, Sam Rami's first
""Spiderman"" film was released to a box-office bonanza. It was the first film to ever pass $100 million in a weekend and even today is still the 24th highest grossing film of all time. The superhero genre had been revitalized and we are now living in the resulting superhero renaissance. But how long until we burn out on superheroes and the studios are sent searching for new summer tentpoles?
Next year is set to be bubbling over with superhuman action. In January we'll see Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg (co-writers of ""Superbad"" and ""Pineapple Express"") take on a classic in ""The Green Hornet."" Then over the summer we get: ""Green Lantern"" with Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively; ""Captain America: The First Avenger"" co-written by Joss Whedon; ""Thor"" with Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman; and ""X-Men: First Class"" directed by Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass) and featuring a cavalcade of stars such as Kevin Bacon, January Jones, and James McAvoy.
And the studios aren't stopping there. They have plans for dozens more superhero film adaptations in the next four years. After last summer's indie hit ""(500) Days of Summer,"" director Marc Webb is set to helm a new Spiderman reboot starring Andrew Garfield (""The Social Network"") and Emma Stone. Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, the duo behind ""Crank"" and its sequel, are directing ""Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance."" In an interesting choice, Darren Aronofsky, director of ""The Wrestler,"" will be taking on ""X-Men Origins: Wolverine 2"" next year. Then there's the inevitable ""Iron Man 3"" to come. Zach Snyder (director of ""300"" and ""Watchmen"") has a new take on Superman, ""The Man of Steel,"" with a script by Jonathan Nolan and David Goyer (co-writers of ""The Dark Knight""). To top it all off, Adrien Brody has been interested in getting an adaption of ""Ant-Man"" rolling, whoever Ant-Man is.
With all of that on the horizon, the question isn't so much whether audiences will get sick of superheroes, but when they will. Marvel and Disney might be in for a rude awakening if public interest wanes before they can even get their mega-Frankenstein film ""The Avengers"" out in 2012. Spiderman and Batman are iconic heroes that everyone knows, comic book nerd or not. But Thor? Green Lantern? How many people will line up at midnight to see them? I highly doubt these will have anywhere close to the pull bigger names have had. How far down the superhero notoriety list can studios go before average folks stop showing up?
Matthew Vaughn, director of the superhero movies ""X-Men: First Class"" and ""Kick-Ass 2: Balls to the Wall"" said in an interview this summer, ""I've always wanted to do a big-budget superhero film and I think we've kind of crossed the Rubicon with superhero films ... The genre is going to be dead for a while because the audience has just been pummeled too much."" But which superhuman cinematic punch is going to be one punch too many?
