Superhero Movies: Is Fox Studios Pushing Too Hard And About To Kill The Genre?

Superhero movies might not be dead yet, but Fox Studios could be making Steven Spielberg’s prediction come true for their franchises. They had a strong start back in 2000 when Bryan Singer’s X-Men hit the theaters and brought us the first critically acclaimed film of the genre.

DC Comics had the first real hit when Warner Bros. gave us Tim Burton’s Batman in 1989; a feat only rivaled over a decade later by Bryan Singer’s X-Men.

The genre first began to fail when X-Men: The Last Stand was released under the direction of Rush Hour‘s Brett Ratner. This third film was so critically slammed that Fox struggled through two Wolverine movies and a prequel to the X-Men franchise, and only achieved mild success. At this point, Christopher Nolan had rebooted Batman and made the character a box office success once more, helping us move on after Batman & Robin.

By the time X-Men: First Class hit theaters, Marvel had already begun their journey with the Avengers franchise, and Sony had hit their own snag with Spider-Man 3. By 2010, Disney had stepped in and bought Marvel Studios, and they haven’t stopped making successful superhero movies since. Even Incredible Hulk and Iron Man 3 were successes, despite the fact that the critics and fans were not happy with them.

Fox is still attempting to revive their own franchises, even to the point of rebooting Fantastic Four, which didn’t work. According to Cinema Blend, Invisible Woman actress Kate Mara has been known to make jokes about how bad the movie is, telling the public that she hasn’t seen it, and “neither did most of the world.” The Guardian revealed that Fox is still pushing ahead with a sequel.

Now superhero movies under Fox are turning into a joke for fans and critics, thanks to Fox pushing to keep their franchise from going back to Marvel. It was recently revealed by the Los Angeles Times that even though Channing Tatum is still going ahead with the Gambit movie, director Rupert Wyatt has left the project.

Another future Fox Studios project that appears to be another attempt to hold on to the rights is the upcoming Wolverine sequel, which has been rumored to follow the “Old Man Logan” story arc. The problem with this, as Cinema Blend reveals, is that most of the characters aren’t available due to studio rights.

While Sony appears to be cooperating with Marvel now, letting them use Spider-Man in the MCU, Fox doesn’t seem to have much of a future with superhero movies. X-Men: Apocalypse could very well be their true last stand.

It also still isn’t clear if the reboot of DC Comics’ Justice League franchise will work.

[Image via PlayBuzz]