With the success of The Avengers, it’s really no big surprise that there are a number of superhero movies in the pipeline right now at the major studios.
Indeed, Justice League has been brought back from the dead at Warner Brothers, and Wonder Woman, which Joss Whedon was going to shoot at one point, is now back up and running again at the same studio as well.
What else in development for the future? Apparently The Flash, Aquaman (insert Entourage joke here), The Green Arrow, Lobo, the Suicide Squad and Shazam.
As we previously discussed, Marvel is currently ahead of the game not only due to the insane success of The Avengers, but also because they have more superhero movies in the pipeline.
However, as Fast Company points out, DC has more to work with than just Batman to turn into movies. The next big test will be Man of Steel, the Superman reboot.
Yet, as Variety notes, it’s not just money from a hit superhero movie that boosts a major studio’s bottom line. Hollywood also rakes in cash from the DVD / Blu-Ray sales, video games, toys and other merchandise, theme parks,etc. Really, a superhero can be a huge industry in itself, and as long as Batman, Spider-Man, Iron Man, and The Avengers rake in the bucks taking care of the overhead, then you’re cruisin.’
Interestingly enough, I was recently reminded about the importance of the superhero business in today’s Hollywood landscape when reading about the modern blockbuster in The New Yorker magazine.
True, it was essentially a profile of Ben Stiller and his place in the Hollywood A-list pecking order, but it did mentions how difficult it is to keep your movie star status, and as Tad Friend writes, “Part of the problem is the ubiquity of ‘pre-awareness’ titles, those adapted from comic books, video games, and young-adult novels,” and one director lamented, “If half your movies are about capes, not people, how can you make movie stars?”
So as New Yorker concludes, “Whenever a new face does emerge – a Ryan Reynolds or a Jeremy Renner – studios jockey to put him in a cape.”
