HBO CEO Shares His Thoughts on Marvel and Superhero Fatigue; THE PENGUIN Release Delayed
HBO and Max Content CEO Casey Bloys recently opened up about the superhero fatigue that this industry is currently experiencing. As you know, there has been a big drop in numbers at the box office for comic book movies, and he believes what a lot of us believe, it’s the lack of good storytelling that is hurting things.
During a 2024 programming showcase in New York, Bloys said: “I don’t know that it’s necessarily tentpole fatigue as much as it is a sameness of storytelling.” Yep, seeing that same story told over and over again is getting old, and it doesn’t help that writing, filmmaking, and VFX work is really rushed.
He went on to talk about what DC is trying to do, saying: “I think the key, even within DC, is trying to tell different stories in different styles, to not try to do the same show over and over and over again. I would say Peacemaker is a very different show tonally than The Penguin. So, there’s not a uniformity to the storytelling and I think that helps.”
Bloys then shared his thoughts on Marvel saying: “Unfortunately, Marvel, as good as their shows are, there’s probably been a lot of them. That’s one of the advantages we have at Warner Bros. is it’s not just one set of stories. There’s a lot of stories you can go to.”
Speaking of The Penguin, The Batman spinoff series starring Colin Farrell has been delayed due to the ongoing WGA strike. It was supposed to the released in spring of 2024, but that is no longer the case for the Matt Reeves-produced project.
As far as trying to tell different stories, I think we can see that DC has been trying to do that over the years and they’ve mixed things up with different filmmakers with some of their projects. Their last film, though, Blue Beetle, which didn’t do too well at the box office, was pretty much a paint-by-numbers origins story that didn’t really do anything different or unique in regards to the story.
What do you think about what Bloys says here about the currently state of superhero films?
Source: Deadline