- Hello, friends.
Iron Man, Captain Marvel, Aquaman,
what do they all have in common?
- They're all comic book heroes.
- Yeah, right, good.
They're also heroes that the general public
outside of diehard comics fans didn't care much about
until they made it big on the big screen.
With Shazam! hitting theaters this weekend,
yet another B-list hero is poised for greatness.
Yeah, I called them B-list, fight me.
Meanwhile, June's Dark Phoenix,
literally starring some of the most popular
comic book characters of all time,
is having trouble generating enthusiasm.
Why?
This week on Heat Vision Breakdown,
we look at why the era of the A-list superhero
may be over and ask will it ever return?
(rock music)
Let's travel back to the 2000s,
an innocent time when X-Men, Batman,
and Spider-Man ruled the big screen,
and Robert Downey Jr. had to slum it in television.
If you were to say to a random passer-by in 2005
hey, how about that Kevin Feige and Marvel Studios,
they'd look at you like you were an idiot.
The Marvel of the 2000s was faced with a dilemma.
What if your company had foolishly licensed away
all of your best characters so you were forced
to make movies starring a Shakespeare impersonator
with a hammer fetish or a Boy Scout
who wears an American flag as a costume?
Could you imagine?
Well, that's what Kevin Feige had to work with and,
over the course of a decade and more than 20 films,
he managed to turn The Avengers
into one of the most powerful brands in Hollywood.
The movies, culminating with Avengers: Endgame this year,
felt fresh, partially because Feige himself
is a comic book geek who understands
what made the universe created by Stan Lee,
Jack Kirby, and Steve Ditko so fun for fans.
Marvel also took chances,
both with untested directors and strange concepts,
like talking raccoons or giving us a Hulk nude scene.
- That's in my brain now.
- As Marvel's star rose in the 2010s,
other studios faltered,
and their more well-known superheroes grew stale.
The Amazing Spider-Man felt like
too much of a retread of Sam Raimy's films.
X-Men: Apocalypse had little of the drama of the early 2000s
X-Men movies and very little of the heart.
It also made Oscar Isaac's titular villain
look like Ivan Ooze from the Power Rangers movie.
That's not good.
Even Justice League,
starring three of the most famous superheroes in the world,
felt like a failed attempt to emulate Marvel Studios' magic.
After watching Marvel score hit after hit
with less-than-marquee superheroes
such as the Guardians of the Galaxy or Ant-Man,
other studios began turning
to their lesser-loved characters for salvation.
And it worked.
Sony made a killing with Venom,
Warner Bros. leaned heavily into its goofier side
and made a splash with Aquaman,
and Fox turned Deadpool,
a movie which hid Ryan Reynolds' beautiful face
beneath 16 pounds of melting wax,
into the crown jewel of its X-Men universe.
Meanwhile, Sony is also currently making a film
about Morbius the Living Vampire with Jared Leto,
a character that sounds like something my mom would make up
to mock what I cover for a living.
I'm sorry I'm not a podiatrist, mom!
Strangely enough, as Marvel Studios prepares to say goodbye
to some of its key stars over the past decade
like Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans,
it now has gained control of its biggest comics characters,
like the X-Men and Fantastic Four,
thanks to the Disney-Fox merger.
And Feige for now still has access to Spider-Man,
which is currently licensed out to Sony.
It's hard to believe,
but Spidey is really the only A-list character Feige has had
access to in all his years as Marvel Studios' boss.
Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor
are all banner heroes now,
but if you travel back even to 2007,
they were far from well-known heroes to the general public.
The 1970s versions of the characters sure didn't help.
- The old people around here are my friends.
- Now that Marvel's golden boy maestro
has access to actual A-list characters,
will he continue to find inventive ways
to use heroes like Wolverine or Susan Storm?
Well, so far at least, the signs point to
Marvel continuing to mine strange properties.
The upcoming Eternals movie, which will star Angelina Jolie,
centers on a group of people
created by the cosmic entities known as the Celestials.
If you know what any of those words were
before hearing about this movie, congratulations!
You're a nerd.
Marvel will also break new ground
with its first Asian superhero, Shang-Chi,
who is getting a solo feature
directed by Short Term 12's Destin Daniel Cretton.
There will also be sequels to Black Panther,
Doctor Strange, Guardians of the Galaxy,
plus a Black Widow prequel.
And don't forget the Disney+ shows focusing on Loki
and characters like Scarlet Witch and Vision
are coming in the future too.
Who could forget about those?
So yeah, Marvel has a lot in the works
with its existing heroes who, let's be honest,
weren't household names before their films hit theaters.
While Marvel sits atop a pile of cash
the size of Mount Olympus built off of minor characters
and DC's planned Justice League sequels lay in ruins,
the question that begs asking is when, if ever,
the era of the A-list superhero movie will come back.
It's likely that Batman,
the only superhero as cool as Spider-Man,
yeah, I said it,
will be returning to greatness
thanks to writer-director Matt Reeves' upcoming 2021 film,
while Patty Jenkins and Gal Gadot
look to continue the success of Diana Prince
at the box office with next year's Wonder Woman 1984.
And now that he has control of the X-Men,
it's likely Feige could craft a mutant movie
that outgrossed any that came before it
and return the franchise to glory.
Hallelujah.
That's good news for big-name superheroes,
but what about the granddad of them all,
Superman?
(fanfare playing)
There are no current plans for a new Superman movie,
but two things are for certain.
It can't be a retread of what Christopher Reeve did,
nor could it be dark and gritty
like Zack Snyder's iterations.
It needs to be something fresh
that audiences have never seen before.
God, how many times have I said that before?
Why not an adaptation of Grant Morrison's
acclaimed All-Star Superman,
which the Scottish comic-book writer imagined
as the definitive Superman story,
rather than something to set up a franchise?
After all, Morrison wasn't looking to redo origin stories
or unpack classic narratives with his comics,
but rather a total rehaul of the character.
Those were his words, not mine.
What's important to acknowledge here is that the notion
of what an A-list character is has changed,
and you can't unring that bell.
Star-Lord and Black Panther are now on that list,
as is Captain Marvel and even Aquaman,
a dude who talks to fish
and was pretty much the punchline
of every superhero joke for the last four decades.
This is the new generation,
one where A-listers like Superman and Batman have to
prove themselves against the likes of Ant-Man or Drax,
where heroes like Wolverine and Johnny Storm
have to be reintroduced with new actors.
Through it all, though, there is one constant.
Hawkeye sucks.
- Look, I'm sorry, guys.
I wish I could have been more help.
- So who do you guys think
are the new A-list superheroes in town?
Do you have a problem with what I said about Hawkeye?
Let us know in the comments right down there.
- Hot Guy?
Who's Hot Guy?
- No, Hawkeye.
Jeremy Renner. - Oh.
Mm-mm, no.
- You know what, don't worry about it.
(rock music)