You can have too much of a good thing is appears. Superhero comics and movie adaptions are reaching their limit as fans are getting fatigued with all of the recent releases.
That is the conclusion according to a recent study. A popular pop culture wiki site called Fandom did a study and surveyed 5,000 entertainment and gaming fans between 13 and 54 years old. The platform also used information of over 300 million users using 250,000 wikis for the study.
Different Types of Fans
Fandom broke down the groups of users into four types of fans. According to Fandom, these are the four groups and how engaged they are with what’s happening.
- Advocates are deeply invested & very engaged; they see things opening weekend/drop (Marvel, Star Wars, and DC fans fall here)
- Intentionalists is the largest group; they see things within two weeks
- Culturalists heavily swayed and influenced by buzz; they see things usually within a month
- Flirts the least engaged audiences; they see things when they can
The study concluded that the community is split fifty-fifty between the advocates and the rest of the groups. But even then, studios will prefer the advocates because they will also spend on merchandising and theme parks.
Fans of Superhero Comics Are Feeling Fatigued
When it comes to comic books and movies, the excitement has seemed to die since Avengers: Endgame was released. The amount of superhero content released has steadily been increasing and the streaming wars has led to even more superheroes being adapted for television series and movies.
DC Comics fans don’t want to see Marvel’s strategy adopted for DC superheroes. Instead, they just want more Superman and Batman projects. Black Adam was supposed to be a blockbuster hit for DC but while it still did well, it wasn’t able to replicate the success marvel movies have had.
But it isn’t that much better for Marvel either as fans are over one-third of Marvel fans said that that they are exhausted from all the new content from Disney+ and movie releases. Disney has tried to get fans of the movies to watch the Disney+ TV shows as Doctor Strange: The Multiverse of Madness movie was a continuation of the Wanda Vision TV show. If you didn’t watch the show, then you would have been confused from the last Marvel movie.
Unlike DC Comic fans, 81 % Marvel fans are more likely to watch a new project from the studio even if they don’t know the character. That is a really high number and showcases how smaller heroes are still able to help Marvel make millions of dollars. Those movies tend to be tied into the main plot of the major heroes so watching them does help follow the overarching plot.
Conclusion
People have been predicting the fatigue of superhero movies for years and that might finally be happening. The problem is that is takes one good trailer with A-list celebrities to get people interested again. With our short attention span and our herd mentality, superhero movies will always be a thing.
Can you imagine any Marvel fan skipping out on the next major Avenger movies? Or the Fantastic Four reboot? With another Superman movie planned, DC fans will be out in numbers to support it. They want to watch their favorite heroes back on the big screen and also send Marvel a message that DC Comics is still going strong.
So, while fatigue is setting in for most fans, I do think the major superheroes and most Marvel movies will be okay. Everything else will have to be good to draw in audiences as there are more superhero adaptions than ever before. And people can only care about so many heroes.