Marvel Comics and DC come back, but the superhero can’t move. It’s hard to get back to the top？

Special feature of 1905 film network "Guild Wars on the Big Screen!" "Sweep the big screen!" "Cool over the big screen!"

In the past two months, superhero movies, with Marvel Comics’s "Ant Man and Wasp Girl: Quantum Frenzy" and DC’s, have landed in China mainland cinemas, and the posters are full of slogans.

For super English fans, this is undoubtedly good news, but the market performance of the three films after their release is not as fierce as the slogan.

Thunder Shazan! The Douban score of Wrath of the Gods (hereinafter referred to as Douban) is currently only 6.2 points, which is the same as the previous one, but the box office performance is very different. The sequel was released for five days, and the box office only received more than 30 million, while the box office of the first part quickly exceeded 150 million at the weekend.

Not only was Thunder Shazam 2 snubbed by the audience, but the results of Panther 2 and Ant Man and Hornet Woman: Quantum Frenzy (hereinafter referred to as Ant Man 3) were not satisfactory. Up to now, the box office of Panther 2 has exceeded 100 million, and the total box office figure obtained in the previous year was 662 million; Ant Man 3, with 272 million yuan, has a lower box office than the previous two.

In terms of quality, Ant Man 3 scored the lowest in the series in Cat’s Eye, Taobao Film and Douban, while Panther 2 even failed in Douban, with only 5.4 points.

These gloomy figures, like China audience voting, show that they don’t like watching superhero movies as much as before. This dilemma does not only occur in China. Take Thunder Shazam 2 as an example, the first weekend box office in North America only received about $30.5 million, which was lower than the expected $35 million, and it also lagged behind the first North American box office score of $53.5 million, and the evaluation score of rotten tomatoes fell below the passing line.

In recent years, the global performance and influence of superhero movies can’t reach the peak of 2019.

"The Avengers" is the most popular superhero movie series in China. Among the top 100 films in China, there are 8 superhero films, and the "Reunion" series includes 3 seats. In 2015, it occupied the eighth place in the history of film in China with a total box office of 4.25 billion yuan, and it is also the first box office of foreign films so far.

Among them, Marvel Comics’s top-grossing single-player superhero movie series is about 2.2 billion box office in 2017 and 2019. DC’s "King of Traffic" belongs to 2018, and it is also the only superhero movie in DC that has entered the top 100 box office in China mainland.

The superheroes who once created the box office myth in the mainland market of China are tired at this stage.

PART.01

The "end" of reunion is the climax of superhero movies and the turning point of decline.

After 2019, Marvel Comics was absent from the mainland market for three years, the Marvel movie universe was "off-duty", and DC was shown in the mainland, but it only earned 167 million and 163 million box office respectively.

Excluding the influence of epidemic situation, streaming media distribution and other factors, these years’ superhero movies have indeed fallen into the predicament of chaotic development and aesthetic fatigue. The douban of the 11 films in the third stage of Marvel Movie Universe is all rated as 7.5, while the douban of the seven films in the fourth stage from Panther 2 is all rated as 5.9, and the overall word-of-mouth decline is particularly large.

Previously, the success of Marvel Comics’s films was to steadily build a multi-line interwoven film universe step by step, and at the same time create a group of superhero characters with strong charm and attraction and deeply bound star actors.

In the fourth stage, these brand effects are greatly reduced, which are mainly revealed in the film universe fracture, actor iteration, the role is not full enough, and the visual effects are not up to standard.

Iron Man and Captain America are the pillars of the first generation, while Spider-Man, the Dutch brother, Doctor Strange, the newly appointed female panther, their growth lines and fullness are weaker than the previous generation, and the quality of the series sequels is also declining, which makes it more difficult for the audience to deepen their emotional connection.

The visual effects of Black Panther 2 and Ant Man 3 are directly caused by the dilemma of unpaid overtime and contradictory time limit, which has been criticized by the audience one after another. A few days ago, the senior management of Marvel Film resigned, and it was also reported that it was related to the visual effect control of these Marvel Comics works.

On the other side of DC, once under the control of others, the "Justice League" was gradually laid out, and its high reputation also made DC fans have strong expectations for the future.

During this period, DC Expanding the Universe (DCEU) embarked on a super-English film route that was different from Marvel’s emphasis on entertainment and family, and was more stylized and serious in theme expression.

After that, the director quit halfway, and the film went through a series of controversial situations, such as the disaster version of the remake, and the later introduction of the guide-cut version. Wonder Woman 1984, Harry Quinn and the Raptor Team, these sequels and derivative films, which were popular because of their previous works, did not think about the layout of the whole universe in advance, and could not make many viewers pay the bill. The whole DC expansion of the universe was like a piece of sand.

However, DC’s superhero movies are both sad and happy. As a one-man super-English film developed by the different world film project, it performed well: The Clown made history and became the first superhero film to win the Golden Lion Award for best film at Venice Film Festival; "New Batman" also continues "The Clown" to create commercial blockbusters with the style of authorship and artistry, and won the seventh place in the global box office last year.

It is impossible for every superhero movie to reach the height of The Clown. The long-term overall planning of the whole universe and the deepening of the series framework are still the core that DC needs to focus on.

PART.02

After Thunder Shazam 2, according to the plan, DC will continue to release three new films of The Flash this year.

Neptune is DC’s most gold-absorbing superhero in China, and the director and starring role will return to the sequel. If it can be introduced smoothly, the market splash will certainly be great.

Warner Bros. is also very confident about the quality of "The Flash", and will show the whole film at the CinemaCon industry recommendation conference two months earlier than the global release time, hoping to form a rave review before the release. The version of Batman will also appear, after he was interviewed that he "finally knows how to play Batman well in this movie" and predicted that his five-minute appearance was very eye-catching.

Although "The Flash" and Aquaman 2 seem to have the potential to reverse the decline of DC, they are still projects left over from the previous management, and DC is at the critical juncture of reshuffle.

At the end of last year, a series of directors and Peter Safran officially took over the DC film industry, and announced the opening of a brand-new DC Universe (DCU), which named this stage "Gods and Monsters", including 10 film and television works, which will relate the plots and characters in the previous DC universe. The film categories include Superman: Inheritance, Power Team, Batman: Brave and Fearless, Superwoman and swamp thing.

This layout may mean that Black Adam II in the previous DC expansion plan may be invalid. Batman 2 is not included in the new DC universe, but is still developed as an independent superhero movie.

"After six years of filming, I decided to bid farewell to superhero movies for the time being." The director of "Thunder Shazam 2" recently issued a document in response to the bad reviews of the sequel. With the film’s current performance in the global market and the deployment of the DC universe, Shazam! 3 may be hopeless.

James Gunn once said that superhero movies can no longer fall into the routine that good guys fight bad guys, and bad guys always win. It should be more complicated and diversified. He also decided to write and direct Superman: Inheritance, the opening work of the new stage, and set the file for 2025.

How to retell the story of Superman? Will Henry, the "Superman" actor who has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the audience, return? How is Batman: Brave and Fearless different from other Batman versions? How did the lesser-known superheroes such as Power Team and swamp thing win the favor of fans?

All these require long-term thinking and careful creation by DC. Only by establishing its own brand characteristics in the superhero movie universe can it win back the hearts of China audiences.

On the other hand, Marvel’s film universe started its fifth stage with Ant Man 3, which will also be released simultaneously in North America in the Mainland on May 5. It is worth looking forward to whether the swan song of "Silver Guard" series can play the strongest sound and surpass the box office achievements of the first two films in China.

Kevin feige, the head of Marvel Comics, also said at this year’s event that he is reorganizing and improving the structure and content of the Marvel movie universe in the following stages.

For example, in the fifth stage, the test is still heavy: the need to break the box office of 1 billion in the previous work continues to play steadily. Under the shadow of the lack of starlight, taking over the falcon of the new American team needs more heroic aura, these reinterpretations and new roles, and it needs to be refreshed.

Marvel Comics and DC, the leaders of two super-English movies, are aware of the fatigue of superhero movies, and there are only a lot of problems to face next. Awakening the vitality of Chaoying, every card played in the future is very important.