For our generation, it’s clear that superhero movies are the defining pop film genre. While previous generations had westerns or golden-age Star Wars, we have the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). “The Guardians of the Galaxy,” modern-day pop culture icons, guided us through elementary school. Iron Man and Captain America, once B-list comic characters at best, now stand tall as some of the most popular figures of our time. Legendary DC duo Batman and Superman gave us the first taste of friendship found through rivalry. Even if you seldom watch superhero movies, they’re in the backdrop of our lives, the media we reference and the Halloween costumes we’ve worn. 

Now, that cultural dominance is being questioned. “Superhero fatigue,” the industry-dubbed phenomenon for audiences growing exhausted with the overwhelming amount of superhero content, has become Hollywood’s go-to explanation for films that under-perform or generate lukewarm responses. What was once the most reliable box office force in Hollywood is dwindling in power. The question isn’t whether something has changed, because it clearly has. It’s whether we’ve grown tired of seeing superheroes on the big screen.       

Before diving into anything else, it is important to note that recent superhero movies are not doing bad at the box office and with general audiences. “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” made over $500 million with a 92 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. The “Thunderbolts*”, while under-performing at the box office, stands as a top three highest-rated MCU film in regards to audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. On DC’s side, both Matt Reeves’ “The Batman” and James Gunn’s “Superman” were critical and financial successes for Warner Brothers. But a good majority of recent superhero movies with established IP, from “The Marvels” to “Captain America: Brave New World” to “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantamania,” simply haven’t generated the buzz they once did, leaving audiences dissatisfied and studios in the red.

Applying the definition of “superhero fatigue” to these cases, it technically does line up accurately. Marvel Studios, factoring in their Disney+ shows and one-shots, has released over 30 projects since 2021. That’s an astonishing output for any franchise, let alone one that expects its viewers to track their endless trail of content across both theaters and streaming services. And qualitatively, audiences are noticing a marked difference between superhero content today and the content of seven to ten years back. 

“I feel like superhero movies, especially by Marvel, were really consistently good before,” West Ranch senior Matthew Alvarez shared. “The ‘Captain America’ trilogy, ‘Avengers: Infinity War,’ ‘Black Panther’ were all really good movies. Not so much anymore.”

But this fatigue isn’t novel to superheroes alone. If “superhero fatigue” seems familiar, that’s because it is. Westerns dominated American cinema for decades before cultural shifts and over-saturation pushed them to the wayside. In the 70s, disaster movies became the craze with films like “Earthquake” (1974) and “The Poseidon Adventure” (1972) before being placed on the back-burner. The same can be said for slasher films, rom-coms and sci-fi flicks. Not dead, but certainly past their initial peak. And alongside superhero films, English teacher and film enthusiast Mr. Blaugrund sees a similar fatigue happening now with comedies: “Comedies have certainly dried up as well. More than superhero movies or any genre, they’re the hardest to make. And I can’t remember the last time in recent memory a good, true comedy film came out that made me laugh.”

What we’re seeing with superhero films follows this broader Hollywood pattern more so than it represents any specific shortcoming of the genre itself. Studios find a formula that resonates, flood the market with content until it becomes indistinguishable to audiences and face the supervillainous consequences of diminishing returns. People are still ready to watch heroics and spectacle. They’re just tired of predictability. 

But there is hope for our favorite caped crusaders. In the last year, we’re seeing attempts towards remedying predictability by studios. The successes of today, from “Thunderbolts*” to “Superman” to “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” all have unique directorial voices and messaging that transcend the genre of cape flicks. Those three in particular feel reminiscent of the early days of the MCU, which saw “Iron Man,” a modern action blockbuster, occupy the same space as a period piece about a WWII supersoldier and a Shakespearean epic of a Norse god. 

So the phrase “superhero fatigue” is a little misplaced. The core appeal of these characters—modern myths grappling with responsibility, morality and identity—hasn’t gone away. But, like every other genre, superheroes are going through a phase of bad movie fatigue, of franchise fatigue, of over-saturation fatigue. And hopefully, studios continue to wise up as they’ve done this past year, giving us diverse, bold approaches to the characters we’ve grown up loving.