Patty Jenkins, director of "Wonder Woman" recently spoke at WonderCon about how she thinks superhero films will continue to grow and develop. The director behind the first ever female-led superhero film, set for release on June 2nd, was asked about the potential for "superhero fatigue" over the coming years.
Superhero fatigue
This refers to the fan base of superhero films potentially becoming less excited for the films as the number of films per year increases and the intricacy of stories develop. Some fans are worried that the interconnectivity of the cinematic universes that these films are built upon.
With Marvel and DC both churning out two to three films a year, it is becoming more of a worry that the core fan base will be the only ones able to keep up with the cinematic universe as a whole.
The worry is that the casual fan will no longer be able to go and see one film without having familiarized themselves with every film that came before it in the universe. When asked about the possible problem of superhero fatigue, Jenkins replied:
"It's not about superheroes. It's about the method of universal storytelling that all people have that is not of one religion, one thing, that America ended up inventing as a way to tell these metaphors about all different kinds of states of being. So for me, that's an incredibly powerful thing.
There's a million movies to be told with [these] common characters."
The sub-genres behind the superhero films
It makes sense that Patty Jenkins thinks the superhero genre is about more than just superheroes, as many other genres have already started creeping into the films. For example, Marvel's "Guardians of the Galaxy" was a comedic space opera, "Doctor Strange" was a mind-bending special effects masterpiece, and "Ant-Man" was a heist film.
While the DC Cinematic Universe hasn't quite got off the ground as quickly as Marvel did in terms of box office, they are still starting to bring in more diversity to their style of film, with "Wonder Woman" itself set up to be a mythological first world war drama. With so much variation from the simple formula that superhero films are expected to use, will superhero fatigue ever catch up with the blockbuster studios trying to keep the universes going?
If it does, there's trouble afoot for more than just Marvel and DC, as many other cinematic universes are beginning to get their feet off the ground. "Transformers", "Godzilla", "Dracula Untold", and more have kick-started their own cinematic universes which could suffer from similar fates if the fatigue starts to kick in for Marvel and DC films.
"Wonder Woman" stars Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Connie Nielsen and Robin Wright, and is set for release on June 2nd.
