Thomas Roach on whether comic book movie competition is bad for the industry….
The movie industry keeps producing more and more comic book movies, and why shouldn’t they? They are usually very successful and there is a lot of money to be made out of merchandise from these comic book characters. Once children see the film they will want action figures, video games, lunch boxes and clothes, all with their favourite characters. Surprisingly fans and critics have enjoyed comic book movies lately as much as independent art movies. However it seems that there’s too many comic book movies and the competition from the different studios may cause the genre to decline.
Early on, when we first started getting comic book adaptations, there was not a great deal of competition. Supposedly the first true comic book movie will have been Superman: The Movie back in 1978. At this time there was no real competition from rival studios producing content. Eventually more and more comic book movies were adapted to the big screen. Superman got 3 sequels with Christopher Reeve and in 1989 Batman starring Michael Keaton was made. Still at this time there was no rival. Marvel actually produced a Captain America and Punisher film around the same time but those were not successful.
Towards the end of the 90s and early 2000s more and more comic book movies were being produced. Marvel especially had a range of films produced by different studios. Marvel nearly went bankrupt in the 90s and in order to sustain the business many of their properties to other studios. X-Men went to 20th Century Fox and Spider-Man went to Columbia Pictures. Marvel Studios started producing their own movies in 2008 with Iron Man and is going stronger strong than ever with ten movies now in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Now in 2014 we are left with more and more comic book movies being produced by rival studios. Not only is there a battle between DC and Marvel, but some Marvel characters are competing with each other. Over the next few years the film industry is going to be saturated by many comic book movies which will certainly split a lot of loyal fans. 2016 will see Captain America 3, X-Men: Apocalypse, Doctor Strange, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and The Sinister Six competing with each other. Maybe it is a good thing that there is such a range of comic book movies to see, but this competition may be bad.
Not all the films have the same release date and are not even that close to each other but the fact is that going to the cinema is getting very expensive, and fewer people go to the cinema nowadays. These big budget films do well at the box office and make studios a lot of money, meaning more and more non-comic book films can be made to keep the industry going. But this competition may drive down the number of ticket sales due; there are many fans who will go and see all these films, but some may lean towards a single film rather than all of them. This could drastically affect the ticket sales and cause a decline in comic book movies.
Batman v Superman and Captain America were originally set to open on the same weekend. Eventually Batman v Superman backed down and Warner Bros. moved the release date to March 2016. If these two films had have been released on the same weekend then both films would have lost out on box office. Sure they would have both made a lot of money but they would have stolen each other’s business. Fans would eventually see both but I guarantee many moviegoers would have chosen one over the other.
Obviously most of these films will not share the same release date, but even movies that are released with in a few weeks of each other will compromise each others ticket sales. It would probably be better if it was just Marvel vs DC as the competition would be healthy, but with several studios releasing competing Marvel films this could damage the ticket sales for both Warner Bros. and Marvel Studios. Many fans still hope that the rights for all Marvel characters will one day revert back to Marvel, but clearly Fox and Sony are not willing to sell back or give up on the properties they have.
Studios are clearly pushing more and more comic book movies in order to generate money but the industry will eventually become too saturated and studios will lose out. This may just appear as a mad rambling to some people but I do truly think that too many comic book movies are bad. Fans used to eagerly await a film or two a year, but now it seems there is always a time when you can go out and see a comic book movie.
Do you think the competition in the comic book industry is bad for business? Let us know…
Thomas Roach
Originally published September 16, 2014. Updated April 15, 2018.
