Master of ego Steven Spielberg weighed in a few years ago with his thoughts on comic-book movies, basically saying they were a fad that would be dying off relatively soon, which was met with some controversy by fans of the genre. Since he made those comments back in 2013, the comic book genre is still going strong, and is about to have its biggest year ever in 2016, when we see ‘Captain America: Civil War,’ ‘Dr. Strange,’ ‘Deadpool,’ ‘Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice,’ ‘X-Men: Apocalypse,’ ‘Suicide Squad,’ and ‘Gambit.’ With so many comic book movies in the works, it might be hard for Spielberg to hold onto the idea that the genre might soon be coming to an end, but in a recent interview with the Associated Press, he reaffirmed those comments, which you can read below:

“I still feel that way. We were around when the Western died and there will be a time when the superhero movie goes the way of the Western. It doesn’t mean there won’t be another occasion where the Western comes back and the superhero movie someday returns. Of course, right now the superhero movie is alive and thriving. I’m only saying that these cycles have a finite time in popular culture. There will come a day when the mythological stories are supplanted by some other genre that possibly some young filmmaker is just thinking about discovering for all of us.”

The sad truth of the matter is that he is not entirely wrong, and the sheer number of studios jumping into the superhero genre might just be the reason it will come to an end. You simply cannot have dozens of “event” movies every year, as the audience will grow fatigued, especially if quality dips as it did for Josh Trank’s ‘Fantastic Four.’ If audiences lose confidence in these films, they will stop going opening night, and then studios will have a few rough years of putting out projects greenlighted during the glory days of the comic book movie whose audiences are no longer there. Granted, this might not happen for another 10-15 years, but as Spielberg has said, these things are cyclical, and studios would be foolish to think the superhero bubble is never going to pop. Of course, with things like Netflix and shows on TV, the superhero genre might not die out as fully as the Western, as ‘Daredevil‘ on Netflix is a prime example of a great place to keep making comic-book stories even once movie audiences are tired of paying to see their favorite characters up on the big screen.

What are your thoughts on the future of comic-book movies? Weight in below!

Source: AP