Yeah, no kidding. Matthew Vaughn (“The Kingsman”) states the obvious when he says a break is needed from superhero movies.
Speaking to Screen Rant, Vaughn — best known for Kick-Ass, X-Men: First Class, and the upcoming Argylle — was asked if he had any desire to direct a superhero movie. Vaughn, though, thinks people need “time off” from those movies:
I genuinely don’t know what’s happening with the superhero [genre] in the sense that, I do think, maybe we all need a little bit of time off from it,” Vaughn said. “Maybe someone will make something so great that we will get excited again…Superhero films are films. It’s a film that has superheroes in it. I think what happened was that they became superheroes, and the film part wasn’t that important.
Vaughn believes that “there’s been so many bad superhero movies” that “like the Western,” people are just getting very bored of them.”
The “superhero movie” probably peaked with 2008’s “The Dark Knight.” There was also a nice stretch of films last decade — I’m thinking “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” and “Avengers: Endgame”, but ever since 'Endgame' it has indeed been a struggle for Marvel and DC to make a good movie. I don’t think I’ve liked a single one of them.
It’s no stretch, just by looking at recent box-office numbers, to believe that rhings have changed. Marvel movies have less of a dominant force. The DCEU is crumbling. Critics have been souring on them as well. The glowing reviews have turned into pans. What changed?
What’s changed is that people appear to have suddenly noticed that these movies are not good. They regret surrendering two hours of the only life they’ll ever live to something called Kang the Conqueror.
I credit Martin Scorsese for starting this movement. It was around 4 years ago that he blew fanboys’ heads wide open by saying that superhero movies are “not cinema”. His comments woke people up, especially critics, who kept surrendering themselves to the latest MCU extravaganza.
The next MCU instalment is this fall’s “The Marvels.” Is anyone genuinely excited about that movie?
Criterion's December lineup has some great additions to the library, but the title that jumped out at me is Werner Herzog's "Grizzly Man," which officially joins the Collection on December 8.