Is superhero movie fatigue a real thing? The term is certainly thrown around a lot, as few superhero movies have performed the same way they did in the late 2010s. But one person who doesn’t believe in superhero fatigue is DC Studios co-head Peter Safran. That’s the one who’s not James Gunn. Speaking to the AP (via IGN), Safran said that superhero fatigue, saying instead that what the movie industry currently has is “mediocre movie fatigue.” Here’s what he said in full, and how it relates to DC Studios’ upcoming slate, particularly Supergirl:
I never felt that there was superhero fatigue. I felt it was mediocre movie fatigue. You gotta try something new. You have to change the game a little bit. The essential story on which Supergirl is based is something cool and original and we haven’t seen before.
Which superhero movies over the past few years did Peter Safran deem as mediocre? We don’t know, but we know that between 2020 and 2024, both Marvel and DC were equally guilty when it came to releasing forgettable projects. But overall, Safran isn’t wrong. Movies need to dive into more offbeat and interesting source material, especially after 25 years of nonstop superhero action. Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow is one such project. And although it’s a supervillain movie more than a superhero movie, we think Clayface counts as another one. Especially as it’s essentially based around an episode of Batman: The Animated Series.
Overall, we’d say superhero fatigue is just one symptom of an overall blockbuster movie fatigue. 2019 was an insane year for the box office, and the very next year, the pandemic happened. And for the most part, box office levels have never gone back to pre-pandemic levels. Very few films have hit more than $500 million at the domestic box office since the start of the decade. And that was once something that happened every year.
Even very well-received movies like Project Hail Mary will come up short of hitting that benchmark. Overall, we just think everyone needs to adjust what counts as success in this new landscape. And that includes superhero movies, too.