Flickering Myth asked what could’ve gone wrong with recent live action film adaptations that didn’t perform as expected, and perhaps unsurprisingly, they hint they’re resorting to the excuse that Coronavirus is still the reason:

Hollywood has spent the past half a decade in a post-COVID era, facing an exacerbation of a problem that was already well in motion. Fewer people, particularly younger generations, are buying cinema tickets. The once Golden Goose, known as the comic book movie, seemed like an unshakable money spinner. Even a C-tier comic like Guardians of the Galaxy, that most Joe Publicans had never heard of before the film adaptation, could make over three-quarters of a billion dollars.

In a post-Avengers: Endgame landscape, with furious oversaturation of product, it seemed like audiences were burned out. Was it simply quantity (never-ending, relentless, Homer Simpson eating donuts in hell) quantity? Maybe. Was it the generally massive dip in quality, with many of the films feeling half-heartedly churned out and feeling decidedly like an executive board meeting of barely considered ideas chucked at the screen? Very possibly, but more likely a combination of both factors alongside something more.

Well first, if they’re suggesting Coronavirus had anything to do with it, the answer is anything but that. The answer is increasingly poor quality, and divisive political ideologies. On which note, they acknowledge one of the latest films to do so, Superman’s newest adaptation, underperformed, and Fantastic Four easily worse:

Superman was a whole different beast, with one of the A-list, top-tier, grand pantheon characters with a long and rich history in comics, TV shows (let’s not mention Dean Cain’s transition from Superman to Ice-man), movies and more. The iconic blue suit, red cape and perfectly coiffed hair is an image that travels the world over, as well as Batman, arguably better. Yet box office expectations felt tempered from the beginning, with the internet descending into a bitter trade of barbs between hopeful new fans, jaded old Reeve fans and (worse) Snyder-bots. They’re nothing if not loyal to his vision and Henry Cavill’s portrayal.

Finally, we had the Fantastic Four, of high standing in pop culture and probably at the lower end of A-tier comic book characters as far as public recognition. In some regards that one had the added luxury of having only dreadful film adaptations to follow. As far as critical response and fan appreciation, the only way was up. […]

Superman had far bigger boots (and a cape) to fill, though. A much bigger legacy character and officially the DC Universe relaunch under head honcho, James Gunn (who also directed the film). Reviews, as I said, are very good. Fans out the door, who hadn’t already made their mind up before the first set picture, were also largely satisfied. Joy of joys, it opened big and it needed to because the film, all in, cost a fortune (as these things generally do). Everything was right…

So what went wrong? It’s the death knell these days, and it’s that killer drop off. Very rarely, especially at the big blockbuster level now, do films hold their levels. Now, Sinners was deemed a big success, in part thanks to its more moderate budget but largely because it had impressively low drop-offs in those opening weeks. Superman fell hard. Mere weeks later, Fantastic Four: First Steps came out, and Clark and co fell off the proverbial cliff.

Fantastic Four also opened fairly impressively, above rather downbeat early predictions, but again, the drop-offs in week two, three, beyond, were killer. It also seemed to suffer from a real turnaround in public opinion for Pedro Pascal, suddenly deemed to be in too much, to be too odd in media circuits, but worst off (apparently) for expressing left-leaning opinions. Even ones of inclusivity and kindness that mirror the general messages most comic books and characters have promoted for nearly a century. Go figure.

I’m amazed this news source admits these movies have turned out to be financial failures in the long run. But no surprise any mention of ideology is muted, and this could include the gender-swapping of the Silver Surfer in the FF movie, something that may have been all but overlooked. The acknowledgement of Pascal’s divisive statements is as close as it gets to giving some clues why these 2 films were failures, along with the Thunderbolts movie (why there’s an asterisk in the title is puzzling). If only they’d show the courage to argue whether they think the ideologies Pascal for one was upholding are divisive, but that’s bound to take a long, long time, if it’s ever debated at all.

Maybe it would do some good to argue for now why moving back to simpler arthouse movies would be a better idea. Maybe even why movies could use a return to more emphasis on “action hero” films. So far, however, nobody seems to be considering that.

Originally published here