With all the clout comic-book movies achieved over the last two decades, it’s easy to forget how low they ranked on the cultural food chain a half-century ago. Taking that view from outer space, the twin arrival of “Superman” and “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” bookends an era in which superheroes soared to unprecedented heights and, depending on how this pivotal month plays out, risk falling back toward Earth.
Understanding the current state of the superhero movie actually requires revisiting that history, because things have happened so fast — has it only been 17 years since “Iron Man” premiered? Or 39 years since “Howard the Duck” nearly killed the whole genre? — you almost have to slow it down, like they use slow motion in “The Flash,” to gain a clear picture of events.
The last two decades have witnessed dizzying commercial highs but more recently unsettling lows. That’s the backdrop as a major crossroads approaches, with the industry hoping fresh takes on DC and Marvel’s signature franchises, “Superman” and “Fantastic Four,” can save the day.
Having weathered respective setbacks, the fate of comic-book movies could be determined in large part by what happens as those traditional rivals, Warner Bros. Discovery’s DC and Disney’s Marvel, find themselves in rebuilding mode, needing hits to inaugurate their next chapters. Without them, the future for such adaptations looks more uncertain than it has in some time, at least in this universe.
DC hopes to jumpstart its “cinematic universe” with “Superman,” James Gunn’s attempt to reload the iconic hero, while Marvel is banking on a big boost from “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” a third version of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s 1961 creation that ushered in the Marvel Comics era, quickly followed by X-Men, Spider-Man, the Hulk, the Avengers, Thor, Iron Man and more, in a creative explosion that some have likened to another ’60s duo, the Beatles’ John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
If there appears to be a common bond between the two films, it involves embracing a sense of fun and playfulness — elements found in “Superman,” and evident in the “First Steps” trailer and its nostalgic ’60s backdrop — after the more brooding tone in some recent comic-book offerings. There’s also an obvious affection for these two comics’ foundational roles for their respective companies, the question being whether that and the sunnier outlook (certainly compared to the 2015 “Fantastic Four” or “Man of Steel”) will broaden their appeal, as opposed to catering to the first-in-line-at-Comic-Con crowd.
After a storied run of billion-dollar hits, Marvel’s latest releases, “Captain America: Brave New World” and “Thunderbolts*,” grossed less than $800 million worldwide combined. As for DC, it’s been waiting for Kal-El since “The Flash,” “Blue Beetle” and the “Aquaman” sequel all fell well below expectations in 2023.
To frame where things stood before the original “Superman,” 1975 saw the release of “Doc Savage, the Man of Bronze,” a pretty-awful movie based on the pulp hero who actually predated Superman’s 1937 comics introduction by a few years. In hindsight, with a budget that TCM’s Ben Mankiewicz jokingly described as “tens of dollars,” it underscored how lightly regarded comics-based material was before Christopher Reeve took flight in 1978, followed by plenty of fits and starts until Marvel’s reign officially began 30 years later.
Michael Uslan, the producer of the “Batman” films first starring Michael Keaton and directed by Tim Burton, recalled his struggle pitching the movie when he acquired the rights in 1979, beginning a decade-long odyssey to bring a darker version of the character to the screen.
“The people I was pitching were an older generation, were the generation not like me that grew up with the birth of Marvel and the evolution of DC and all the other companies and superheroes that emerged,” Uslan told TheWrap. “They were still part of that old generation that had in their memory cells either comic books are bad for you, or at best, comic books are cheap entertainment for little children.”
The Fantastic Four occupy a special place for comic-book aficionados, given their role in redefining the industry. Lee, famously, had considered giving up writing comics before gambling on something more ambitious with “Fantastic Four,” proceeding to revitalize Marvel with Kirby and Spider-Man artist Steve Ditko.
Unlike Kirby, who died in 1994, Lee lived to see those creations conquer pop culture and become an ambassador for the industry. He often spoke of improvements in visual effects as the key — “The special effects make it possible to tell these stories the way they should be,” he told me in a 2014 interview — but the secret ingredient was really filmmakers weaned on comics who loved them and took the material seriously, something Lee grappled with for years as he toured Hollywood pitching Marvel titles during the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s.
“I wish it had happened overnight,” Lee, who died in 2018 at the age of 95, said when “Avengers: Age of Ultron” premiered in 2015. “I’m not a patient guy – I wish this had all happened 30, 40, 50 years ago, but I’m glad it happened. I’m glad I’m still around while it is happening, because it’s incredibly enjoyable.”
For DC, Superman and Batman set the bar
For DC, meanwhile, all roads invariably lead to Superman and Batman.
Director Richard Donner’s “Superman” made good on its slogan “You Will Believe a Man Can Fly,” and helped chart a path toward more ambitious, higher-quality superhero fare. Following a trio of sequels yielding diminishing returns, the baton passed to his DC Comics companion “Batman,” with Burton’s 1989 movie marking a stark and welcome departure from the campy ‘60s TV show that became an enormous hit.
Thanks to its tumultuous, economically stressed years, Marvel Comics actually sold off film rights to some of its highest-profile characters, which explains why the next superhero movie milestone, “X-Men,” fell under the aegis of 20th Century Fox in 2000, which by then also controlled the rights to The Fantastic Four.
“Spider-Man,” another Marvel castaway that landed at Sony, exploded onto the scene two years later with the first $100-million-plus opening weekend, and Warner Bros. launched the Dark Knight trilogy with director Christopher Nolan starting with “Batman Begins” in 2005, followed by the Oscar-winning “The Dark Knight,” that rare superhero movie to combine success with prestige.
Marvel’s gamble on a “cinematic universe”
Marvel truly began its domination, improbably, by embarking on an audacious scheme to release a handful of interlocking movies starting with “Iron Man” in 2008, and culminating with “The Avengers” in 2012.
As Marvel chief Kevin Feige noted, that plan — initiated before Disney acquired the company for $4 billion in 2009 — represented an enormous gamble given Marvel’s humble track record and reliance on characters with less widespread familiarity than Superman and Batman.
“People forget that ‘Iron Man’ was an independent movie,” Feige said in the book “MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios.” “I pitched that movie dozens of times to foreign buyers because we had to get — I don’t remember exactly what the percentage was, but a large percentage of financing it was from pre-selling the foreign rights.”
Marvel’s Midas touch continued even with second-tier characters like “Ant-Man,” “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “Captain Marvel,” before peaking (and then some) with the climactic “Avengers: Endgame” in 2019, which grossed almost $2.8 billion worldwide.
Since then, however, Marvel has unleashed some ostentatious misfires, not entirely its fault (COVID set back blockbusters in general, and movies like “Eternals” in particular), but undermining its sure-thing reputation. Throw in DC’s struggles since back-to-back winners “Wonder Woman” and “Aquaman” in 2017 and 2018, respectively, and naysayers are wondering if the window of superhero box-office preeminence is closing, or at least shrinking.
Of course, “Deadpool & Wolverine” became a huge hit last summer. At the time, Feige celebrated reuniting X-Men and The Fantastic Four with Marvel’s portfolio and the possibilities that opened, noting there were “giant sections of our classic comics that were X-Men that we couldn’t translate into the MCU. Now, we can.”
Clearly, in terms of investment and expectations superheroes have come a very long way indeed, with the latest “Superman” enthusiastically embracing even relatively obscure DC characters, bringing the comics to life in a way that once might have seemed unimaginable.
After all, in addition to inexpensive movies like “Doc Savage,” the ‘70s featured threadbare TV shows like “Wonder Woman,” “Spider-Man” and “The Incredible Hulk,” the last relying on 6’5” bodybuilder Lou Ferrigno, camera angles and tear-away walls to create its limited special effects.
“Fantastic Four,” meanwhile, became a Saturday-morning cartoon that replaced the Human Torch (whose screen rights, like X-Men, were tied up) with a wisecracking robot. In 1994, a low-budget indie version of the quartet from producer Roger Corman was produced, but never officially released.
Comic-book fans who see those years as the bad old days can breathe sighs of relief that they’re not coming back. Yet recent hiccups have introduced a level of uncertainty the genre hasn’t experienced since Downey Jr. first donned that armored suit. While Marvel has at times made it look easy, all indicators suggest it’ll take more than just a snap to reach another “Endgame.”
