The superhero genre is a big hit in Hollywood right now. Every year there are tons of superhero films being released. Just this year we saw the premiere of Marvel's second superhero team-up in Avengers: Age of Ultron and the last film in their Phase Two initiative – Ant-Man. There's also Fox's failed attempt at rebooting their other franchise besides the X-Men – Josh Trank's dark and gritty Fantastic Four. While some of these failed to impress the critics and the movie audiences, it's still another addition into the ever growing list of superhero films produced just this decade. Even more interesting, next year will be the release of a lot of big superhero films from popular properties such as Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, Captain America: Civil War, Deadpool, and X-Men Apocalypse to list a few. While some might agree with Steven Spielberg that superhero films will go “the way of the western” (fade off in popularity), other artists are still optimistic about the future of the genre.
Chris Evans is one of these optimists. After all, he was a part of the rise of this genre when he played the Human Torch in 2005's Fantastic Four and its sequel. And right now he's starring in his third solo film as Captain America, one of the most popular heroes from Marvel. He left the Civil War filming location recently to promote his directorial debut “Before We Go”, and in an interview with Collider he was asked about his thoughts on Spielberg's statement.
According to Evans, the improvement of technology is what drives the genre, as well as other types of films that makes use of this technological advancement:
“I certainly think that given the fact that technology has finally advanced, they’re always going to be looking for other films to match their technological accomplishments. Any film that can incorporate these larger-than-life characters and fantastical locations and plots, the technology wants to prove they can do it so whether it’s superhero film or fantasy in general, that’s going to surge for a while.”
He also stated that for the superhero genre to last longer, it has to be approached with something new to add to the table and keep reinventing the genre:
“In terms of superhero in general, existing properties that we know and love, it’s going to be a matter of the tone they strike. You could look at Jason Bourne as a superhero. You could take any superhero movie and if you ground it enough, if you make it real enough—that’s what I think [Captain America: The Winter Soldier directors Joe and Anthony Russo] do really well. Certain superhero movies feel like “superhero movies.” Russo movies almost feel like human stories with a little bit of superhero sprinkled in. So you might get exhausted of the larger-than-life powers I suppose, but as long as the filmmakers keep on reinventing the flavor and the approach and the tone, audiences are going to still go.”
From what it seems like, future superhero films are already adding other elements to the mix. Marvel's attempt at a Spider-Man reboot will be akin to a John Hughes film, while David Ayer compared his Suicide Squad to the Dirty Dozen. Whether this will be successful in preventing it from going the way of the western or not, we'll have to wait and see. If Evans is right, then the genre might last longer. Chris Evans will likely be moving to the next filming location for Captain America: Civil War, which premieres to theaters on May 6, 2016.
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