"Captain America: Civil War" has come out. If you're not a comic book nerd, you might be getting this movie confused with "Batman v Superman." That's a grievous sin for comic book lovers; but even if you're not a fan of graphic novels, you can admire this titan of a franchise Marvel has formed. That's the whole point. Superhero movies have become a genre for both people like me and people like you. So when has this new genre been created, where every celebrity is vying to get on board and originate a famous character before the trend dies out? Or rather, what changed?
Comic book movies used to be solely for nerds. Ghost Rider, Blade, Punisher, and others were all awful. Why? The problem, I think, was because comic book movies weren't treated as movies, only comic books. That's not really how movies work (unless you're Edgar Wright). The first movie that changed this thinking was the movie that transformed a comic book into a real-life movie--a film experience, not a comic book with a camera. That movie was Sam Raimi's Spiderman, with Tobey Maguire. Say what you want about the movie, but it did its job. And, even though he was not the best Spiderman, Tobey was perfect for the guy who shouldn't be the superhero, which, at that time in film history, wasn't really something that had been seen before in a superhero movie. Because when that kind of person is a hero, everyone can relate. It was a movie, not a comic book, and thus it did well with movie goers who don't like comic books. More specifically, it wasn't a superhero movie as much as it was a hero movie, albeit an extraordinary one. That's when Marvel started to soar.
Sam Raimi created the superhero genre. Marvel continued to recreate the form, and soon after came Iron Man, the birth of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Now, in 2016, the superhero genre is the highest grossing genre in America, and even quite possibly the world. Likewise, even the rise in comic book sales have soared. But, why? Why does everyone need superhero movies, not just avid comic lovers? Because we all have one thing in common.
We love heroes. And what's better than heroes? Superheroes. We want to be extraordinary, and these films help us reach that; especially, the X-Men movies. The fact that if only one strand of our DNA had been switched, we could save the world? It's astonishing. And that's what we love most. We love ordinary people put in extraordinary situations. Sam Raimi placed someone who shouldn't have been a superhero in that position, and it was one of the most interesting movies of the decade. Now, we can't get enough. People don't show up to the premiere of a Nicholas Sparks movie dressed like the main character. They dress like Captain America, because they want to be him. These heroes are our generation's role models. Ones who can save the world. What more could you ask for? We're a generation of dreamers, and the cinema is for dreamers.
There will always be superhero movies. We need them. We want to see someone overcome the obstacles we never could. We want to see someone do the impossible we've always dreamed. We want to see someone save the world. There will always be superhero movies. Because, at this time in history, we really need someone to look up to. We really need heroes.
Superheroes.
