The Scene staff
The superhero film genre has skyrocketed since the release of Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man” in 2002, going from a niche movie experiment to the most profitable genre in the industry.
Marvel studios has grossed $22.55 billion with 23 films revolving around Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and Doctor Strange in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Nowadays, an MCU entry is considered a flop if it doesn’t make a billion dollars.
The box office was $821.7 million for the first “Spider-Man” movie starring Tobey Maguire, making it the third highest-grossing film of 2002. The last installment, “Spider-Man: Far From Home,” earned more than $1 billion in its first few weeks.
It’s easy to understand why the popularity of superheroes has grown in the past 18 years. There is almost always a new superhero movie in theaters.
DC Comics, with properties like Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and Aquaman (and hundreds more), has had a much rougher ride on the road of adapting its comics into feature films.
Marvel’s first MCU entry was “Iron Man” in 2008 with a nearly perfect cast that included Robert Downey Jr. as the title character. The film was praised by fans and critics alike, and it currently has a 94 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes, a review-aggregation website.
This solid foundation gave Marvel an opportunity to expand on the story and characters of the “Iron Man” world, lead-ing to the creation of solo-origin-story films for Thor and Captain America.
Then came “Avengers” in 2012, bringing all the characters together in one movie.
This was a pivotal moment in film history, the first time anything like it had been attempted. And the gamble paid off in spades. The first “Avengers” film made more than $1.5 billion.
Marvel had drawn a blueprint for creating a cinematic universe, and many other studios wanted a piece of the action. Some tried it their own way. Others shamelessly tried to copy what Marvel had done, and that gets me back to the DC Universe.
When “Avengers” hit theaters and broke records, DC executives were looking from the outside in with jealous eyes. They hadn’t invested in a film franchise since Christopher Nolan directed the “Dark Knight” trilogy.
“We’ve got the most recognizable superheroes in existence,” they must have thought. “This is gonna be a piece of cake!”
The first part was true. Iron Man was a B or C list superhero before he hit the big screen. Superman and Batman have been around longer and are statistically more recognized by the world.
Superman is arguably the first and most popular superhero ever, and Batman is just as beloved, or more so.
So why is it that the DCU is the ugliest, most insulting, despicable, God-hating creation since the atom bomb? Many reasons have been offered by the world’s leading minds: Complete and utter ignorance, stupidity and greed.
Trying to understand such a disaster can take a toll on the mind, similar to the post-traumatic stress disorder that people can develop while studying historic tragedies. And you have to watch the movies, which I strongly advise against.
DC released “Man of Steel” in 2013, and I remember it vividly. It was the first “Superman” movie since the forgettable “Superman Returns” in 2006, and the promise that it was going to be the start of a new cinematic universe got people in the seats.
I went on Day One to a packed theater. I was about 13, an age where it doesn’t take much to entertain. Even so, in the middle of the movie, I realized something: I was bored. Henry Cavill acting his way through a godawful script was not working for me.
But I loved Superman. I loved his inspiration, his undying resolve to do good. I had grown up with Superman cartoons, and I adored the Christopher Reeve films.
So why was I bored? I was too young, too naive to understand what was happening. In my brain I thought, “Well, I like Superman. So I must like a Superman movie, right?” Wrong.
It was bad. It was not good. But I refused to accept it. My youth prevented me from coping with what had been done. A corporation intent on making a quick buck had destroyed a character — no, an idea that had been preserved and cherished for generations.
But the folks at DC didn’t care. They only cared about getting their money back. Which they did, by tricking people like you and me with the allure of a decent movie. “Man of Steel” made $668 million, despite the bad reviews, and got a Rotten Tomatoes score of 56 percent.
It was the beginning of the end for a fledgling franchise, and it would only get worse. Unbelievably worse.
Of the first five films under the DCU banner, only one of them was “Fresh” on the Rotten Tomatoes scale, which is to say, watchable. The others never got more than “Man of Steel’s” 56 percent, with the next film, “Batman Vs. Superman” gaining a pathetic 28 percent rating. Warner Bros.’ next idea of a joke would be “Suicide Squad,” getting an impressive 27 percent, hammering in the last nail on the coffin that was to be the big new cinematic universe that would rival Marvel’s.
Surprisingly, they didn’t stop making more movies after “Suicide Squad.” Not even after Ben Affleck and Cavill jumped ship. You know you’ve failed when your Batman and Superman actors are too embarrassed to be in your movies. But what went wrong? Why were they so bad? Well, many things, in fact.
First of all, they were too rushed. Insanely rushed. There were five movies building up to “Avengers.” There were two building up to “Justice League.” DC wanted the big cash cow NOW, damn it! The company didn’t want to wait for a buildup.
How did that approach work out for them? The international gross for “Justice League” barely passed $500 million, while the latest “Avengers” movie was hitting $2.8 billion, making it the highest grossing film of all time.
DCU movies are the result of a perfect storm of inept people with no passion and no brains, trying to copy and paste something that is beloved.
Reflecting on these movies makes me feel a lot of things: Anger, black hate, spite, annoyance, helplessness and objectification, to name a few. But the most overpowering feeling is disappointment.