Definitely a big term that has been floating here and there, “Superhero Fatigue” is a concept that is confusing people. The major ambiguity arises from whether to blame this for people avoiding theaters or if superhero films are actually keeping moviegoers in the theaters.
See, we will never have a proper answer; this is a subjective matter, but all we can do is listen to the other person. Talking about the negative side of the events, Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola are two primary flag bearers. But Hemsworth is now rejecting their criticisms, and he has a solid point.
“It felt harsh, and it bothers me, especially from heroes. It was an eye-roll for me, people bashing the superhero space,” Hemsworth said in the interview. “Those guys had films that didn’t work too—we all have. When they talked about what was wrong with superheroes, I thought, cool, tell that to the billions who watch them. Were they all wrong?”
Later, he added that “cinema-going did not change because of superheroes, but because of smartphones and social media. Superhero films actually kept people in the cinemas during that transition, and now people are coming back. So they deserve a little more appreciation.”
Even those actors who just collected their share of fame and then left the MCU didn’t survive the crossfire of Hemsworth’s words. Especially with someone like Elba or Christian Bale.
“It’s like, ‘They’re films that are successful—put me in one. Oh, mine didn’t work? I’ll bash them,’” Hemsworth said. “Look, I grew up on a soap opera. And it used to bother me when actors would later talk about the show with guilt or shame. Humility goes a long way. One of the older actors on ‘Home and Away’ said, ‘We don’t get paid to make the good lines sound good, but to make the bad ones work.’ That stuck with me.”
“But hey, it’s all a lesson,” he continued. “And if I ever went back to [Thor], I’d wonder how we could change it again. But there is a superhero curse in the sense you get pigeonholed, and I’ve felt a little hamstrung with what I could do, so [I] desperately wanted something to scare the shit out of me. And ‘Furiosa’ did.”
See, if you talk about whether superhero fatigue exists, it definitely does; there is no doubt about it. But also, one can’t always blame superhero films for the downfall of cinema. On a realistic scale, they did quite the opposite. Superhero films helped cinema to survive, again and again—that’s a truth no one can really avoid.
We’re hiring!
We are hiring two full-time junior to mid-level writers with the option to work remotely. You need to work a 5-hour shift and be available to write. Interested candidates should email their sample articles to [email protected]. Applications without a sample article will not be considered.
