What have Comic Book movies replaced?

Movies
1

@Skipper and @Jason_Becker were lamenting the loss of quality SF movies to “mindless CGI films” and comic book based films.

So it got me thinking, what exactly did Comic book movies replace? What were the big tentpole hits of yesteryear that we’re no longer seeing? Is it thoughtful SF movies? My own personal theory was that they replaced mindless summer popcorn movies like Independence Day and Armageddon.

But instead of guessing, let’s try to look back.

Here’s the top 25 hits from previous decades:

TOP FILMS OF 1960s
(unadjusted domestic gross totals)
The Sound of Music (1965)
101 Dalmatians (1961)
The Jungle Book (1967)
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
The Graduate (1967)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) (tie)
Mary Poppins (1964) (tie)
My Fair Lady (1964)
Thunderball (1965)
Funny Girl (1968)
Cleopatra (1963)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967)
The Love Bug (1968)
Goldfinger (1964)
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
How the West Was Won (1962)
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)
The Dirty Dozen (1967)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Midnight Cowboy (1969)
The Odd Couple (1968)
Valley of the Dolls (1967)
West Side Story (1961)
You Only Live Twice (1967)

TOP FILMS BY YEAR
(unadjusted domestic gross totals)
1960: Swiss Family Robinson (1960)
1961: 101 Dalmatians (1961)
1962: How the West Was Won (1962)
1963: Cleopatra (1963)
1964: Mary Poppins (1964)
1965: The Sound of Music (1965)
1966: The Bible: In the Beginning (1966) and Hawaii (1966) (virtual tie)
1967: The Jungle Book (1967)
1968: Funny Girl (1968)
1969: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

TOP FILMS OF 1970s
(unadjusted domestic gross totals)
Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)
Jaws (1975)
The Exorcist (1973)
Grease (1978)
The Sting (1973)
(National Lampoon’s) Animal House (1978)
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
The Godfather (1972)
Superman (1978)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977/80)
Smokey and the Bandit (1977)
Blazing Saddles (1974)
Rocky (1976)
The Towering Inferno (1974)
American Graffiti (1973)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
Love Story (1970) (tie)
Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) (tie)
Saturday Night Fever (1977)
The Amityville Horror (1979)
Young Frankenstein (1974)
Every Which Way But Loose (1978) (tie)
Rocky II (1979) (tie)
The Poseidon Adventure (1972)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
Jaws 2 (1978)
Heaven Can Wait (1978) (tie)
MAS*H (1970) (tie)
Alien (1979)

TOP FILMS BY YEAR
(unadjusted domestic gross totals)
1970: Love Story (1970)
1971: Billy Jack (1971)
1972: The Godfather (1972)
1973: The Exorcist (1973)
1974: Blazing Saddles (1974)
1975: Jaws (1975)
1976: Rocky (1976)
1977: Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)
1978: Grease (1978)
1979: Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)

TOP FILMS OF 1980s
(unadjusted domestic gross totals)
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983)
Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Batman (1989)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Ghostbusters (1984)
Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
Back to the Future (1985)
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) (tie)
Top Gun (1986) (tie)
Tootsie (1982)
Crocodile Dundee (1986)
Rain Man (1988)
Three Men and a Baby (1987)
Fatal Attraction (1987)
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
Beverly Hills Cop II (1987)
Gremlins (1984)
Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985)

TOP FILMS BY YEAR
(unadjusted domestic gross totals)
1980: Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
1981: Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
1982: E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
1983: Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983)
1984: Ghostbusters (1984)
1985: Back to the Future (1985)
1986: Top Gun (1986)
1987: Three Men and a Baby (1987)
1988: Rain Man (1988)
1989: Batman (1989)

TOP FILMS OF 1990s
(unadjusted domestic gross totals)
Titanic (1997)
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)
Jurassic Park (1993)
The Lion King (1994)
Forrest Gump (1994)
Independence Day (1996)
The Sixth Sense (1999)
Home Alone (1990)
Men in Black (1997)
Toy Story 2 (1999)
Twister (1996)
The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
Mrs. Doubtfire (1993)
Beauty and the Beast (1991)
Ghost (1990)
Aladdin (1992)
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999)
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Armageddon (1998)
Toy Story (1995)
Dances With Wolves (1990)
Batman Forever (1995)
The Fugitive (1993)
Liar Liar (1997)

TOP FILMS BY YEAR
(unadjusted domestic gross totals)
1990: Home Alone (1990)
1991: Beauty and the Beast (1991)
1992: Aladdin (1992)
1993: Jurassic Park (1993)
1994: The Lion King (1994)
1995: Toy Story (1995)
1996: Independence Day (1996)
1997: Titanic (1997)
1998: Saving Private Ryan (1998)
1999: Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)

TOP FILMS OF 2000s
(unadjusted domestic gross totals)
Avatar (2009)
The Dark Knight (2008)
Shrek 2 (2004)
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006)
Spider-Man (2002)
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Spider-Man 2 (2004)
The Passion of the Christ (2004)
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
Spider-Man 3 (2007)
Finding Nemo (2003)
Shrek the Third (2007)
Transformers (2007)
Iron Man (2008)
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001)
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)

TOP FILMS BY YEAR
(unadjusted domestic gross totals)
2000: How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)
2001: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001)
2002: Spider-Man (2002)
2003: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
2004: Shrek 2 (2004)
2005: Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)
2006: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006)
2007: Spider-Man 3 (2007)
2008: The Dark Knight (2008)
2009: Avatar (2009)

TOP FILMS OF 2010s
(unadjusted domestic gross totals)
(tentative only)
Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015)
Black Panther (2018)
Jurassic World (2015)
Marvel’s The Avengers (2012)
Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Beauty and the Beast (2017)
Finding Dory (2016)
Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)
Toy Story 3 (2010)
Wonder Woman (2017)
Iron Man 3 (2013)
Captain America: Civil War (2016)
The Hunger Games (2012)
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017)
Frozen (2013)
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 (2011)

TOP FILMS BY YEAR
(unadjusted domestic gross totals)
2010: Toy Story 3 (2010)
2011: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 (2011)
2012: Marvel’s The Avengers (2012)
2013: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)
2014: American Sniper (2014)
2015: Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015)
2016: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
2017: Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)
2018: Black Panther (2018) (tentative)

Any observations? Patterns? Other lists that might provide better insight than these lists?

2

It’s tough to compare as far back as the 60s. The late 70s, early 80s is when the more modern concept of the “pop” blockbuster showed up. If anything, comic book movies just slide into that category. I don’t think they’ve really replaced anything. Looks like - generally - you get some comedy, some family, and a fair amount of epic\saga\pop action showing up on these lists (looking only at the top per year), if you look at 70s on. The 2010s list isn’t too dissimilar, except for a lack of comedy.

3

Great topic. I was lamenting as an old man who probably doesn’t know what he’s talking about. But we could wager that they have taken SOME budget for SOME movie in order to green light so many. As an example, I think there are 9 slated for this year (2018) alone.

We did have superhero movies in the past, so I can’t say that’s a 100 percent change. But the frequency is certainly higher in number, per year.

Per the Top Films by Year for 2017 if we expand that single item, these are the top ten:

  1. “Beauty and the Beast” — $1.26 billion
  2. “The Fate of the Furious” — $1.23 billion
  3. “Despicable Me 3” — $1.03 billion
  4. “Spider-Man: Homecoming” — $880.1 million
  5. “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” — $863.5 million
  6. “Thor: Ragnarok” — $841.8 million
  7. “Wonder Woman” $821.8 million
  8. “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales” — $794.8 million
  9. “It” — $697.5 million
  10. “Justice League” — $635.9 million

Roughly 50% of the TOP GROSSING movies in 2017 were based on comic characters. That’s a monstrous amount of money, and you can see why studios take the gamble.

Will this rate keep up? As the saying goes, as long as there is money to be made, they will bleed it dry.

What might have been made instead is pure speculation. I honestly don’t know where it would have gone. I’d like to say Sci-Fi, but for all I know it could have been a foreign drama film which I would have never watched.

I could add here: Will there be a comic book movie bust at some point? It is over-saturated already? Does anyone else simply not go to them anymore?

4

The thing is, you are assuming there is a fixed operating budget that has been preferentially allocated to comic book movies, whereas I strongly suspect they are generating their own operating capital.

5

I found some interesting information here -

https://www.the-numbers.com/market/

But the most telling chart is this one, that shows the total number of wide releases from 1995 to 2018.

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As you can see, it’s remained pretty flat for the big studios.

So, first you have to ask the primary question: Are comic book movies replacing other types of movies at the box office?

And the answer would seem to be yes, if the total number of releases is flat, and more and more comic book movies are coming from the major studios.

But the question of what they are replacing is probably pretty straight forward: other summer action blockbusters. Probably the reason we haven’t gotten more Indiana Jones movies, for example, is because the studio doesn’t need them to fill a summer tentpole slot. The same for sequels for all sorts of other movies. I would imagine if Disney were doing fewer Marvel movies, they’d be pumping out more Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

6

Another graph from that same site, the ticket sales are actually decreasing, and the box office take is being made up with rises in ticket prices.

image

Perhaps to what you are saying, these movies could be propping up ticket sales and the loss of them might show a much harsher decline at the box office?

7

That’s interesting. Looks like ticket sales peaked in 2002.

8

Yeah, right as DVD players started taking off. Maybe not causal, of course, but I would hypothesize that as the home viewing experience improved, people decided they didn’t need to go to as many movies in theaters.

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9

This is even more so now with streaming. We miss a ton at the theatre but catch streamed rentals right about early release date for DVD/BR time.

10

That’s not what I was saying - I was saying that they are probably being funded out of the massive piles of money they are making. But yes, they are quite possibly bolstering the declining business of movie theaters - certainly, I have only bothered to see comic book movies and the recent Star Wars entries in the theater in the last few years (with maybe one or two exceptions) due to the difficulty of getting to them and the expense making it difficult to justify for anything that’s not a big effects extravaganza.

11

All right, so here’s my old man moment: in my day, we waited three years between Star Wars sequels, and for decades there were only ever three of them. We were so desperate we watched stuff like the Christmas special and those Ewok TV movies.

Now you’ve got a new Marvel movie every what, six months? DC movies every so often (not keeping track) and Star Wars every frickin’ year. Now I’m not saying kids have it better - in fact I’m not sure they do. I think that scarcity meant we valued those little oasises (oases?) in the cinematic desert. I kind of liked the prequels just because I hadn’t gotten new Star Wars movies in fifteen years! Now all you kids go home, I need a nap.

12

If anything, the trend I see reaching back to the 60s and then coming forward is a reduction in the number of “serious” films that crack the top numbers. You have to look hard to find a Kramer vs. Kramer of a Midnight Cowboy these days.

13

I would go see that in a heartbeat.

“That’s why Mommy left, isn’t it? Because I was bad?”
“No, it was because, I’M WALKING HERE!!!”

14

Blockbusters these days (especially the Marvel movies, but not only them), have much, much bigger international takes than they used to.

15

True; I don’t think that’s necessarily a knock on the audience or studio involvement in films like those, however. I think it’s much more the case that there are simply more blockbusters than before, spread more evenly throughout the year, and with far better marketing than in the past to get butts in seats.

Last year, for example, you don’t have to look far down the list to find more “serious” films like Dunkirk, Get Out, and The Post. Many of those have sharply reduced budgets from those blockbusters, so they do well and make their money - so they’ll keep getting made. They may not get the prestige of being in the Top 10 these days, but I don’t think studios are putting those babies in the corner, given their relative profitability.

16

To me what’s most interesting about this graph is that the overall number of tickets seem to be fairly flat even though much fewer movies are being made now compared to 1995.

It suggests that the Movie studios made the right bet with going with fewer, bigger movies vs pumping out lots of mid-size movies. I guess similar analogies can be made to the gaming industry here :)

17

I think the this is it. Even stuff like Indiana Jones and Star Wars which had an international appeal were made for an American audience and with Hollywood techniques (even if they pioneered quite a bit as well.)

Today “domestic” i.e. US ticket sales are regularly 1/3 of international box office totals. I think this makes comparing the past and the present really hard as you’re basically looking at different markets and different economic decisions.

I will say i’m totally behind the ball w/ comic book movies. I thought generic Marvel/DC characters really were Men In Tights and couldn’t get into them even as a preteen. Now it’s just another feature of the modern world i don’t understand like the Kardashians.

18

I’m not so sure comic book movies really are taking the place of any other style or genre of movie. We still have the Star Wars and Star Trek movie franchises doing arguably the best they’ve ever done right now, so we’re certainly not losing Sci-Fi movies to the increase of comic-based movies. There also still seem to be plenty of rom-coms aimed at women and raunchy comedies aimed at young adults doing pretty well, and while the horror genre has dropped off a bit since it’s heydays in the 80’s and 90’s, you could argue that the quality of the films being produced in the genre has increased.

Instead, I think comic book movies have simply cannibalized the tent-pole blockbuster category they belong in. With the ending of years worth of blockbuster movie franchises such as LotR/Hobbit, Harry Potter, Hunger Games and others, the Marvel and DC Universe movies have simply stepped into their places. The studios have done a very good job as well of making the movies tie together tightly, so going to see the next Marvel Universe movie feels a lot like seeing the next movie in a franchise series, as characters and plotlines carry over from film to film. Today’s Avengers movies are WAY better at this than the X-Men movies from 15 years ago for example.

Finally, I think there is a real shift at the movies in the past decade towards simple, exciting, action-oriented fare. I believe that some of that comes from people simply wanting to escape when they go to the big screen, and a lot of it comes from the small screen now being so damn good at delivering just about everything else. Think about the enormous jump in both quantity and quality of television shows in the past decade. We now have very high quality shows in every genre imaginable available via cable TV and streaming services…including even MORE comic book stuff. When the production quality of an HBO, Netflix or basic cable show starts to rival that of a Hollywood movie, what do you do if you’re the studios looking to get people to the theater? Go even bigger.

19

I think that “superhero” is just a sub-division of the action/adventure genre. There is little practical difference between Doctor Strage and Harry Potter, or Peter Quill and Luke Skywalker, or even Indiana Jones and Batman… they’re all simply protagonists in an action-packed, explosion-infested movie full of derring-do. The fact that some of them wear spandex doesn’t change much about the movie.

Here’s my matrix of the original post:

Genre 60s 70s 80s 90s 2000s 2010s
Action/Adventure 5 6 9 10 16 16
Comedy 5 8 7 4
Crime 1
Drama 4 6 2 2
Historical Epics 5 3 3 1
Horror/Thriller 5 2 1
Musical 4 2
Animated/Family 3 1 5 4 4
26 31 21 25 21 20

Here’s by Percentages

Genre 60s 70s 80s 90s 2000s 2010s
Action/Adventure 19% 19% 43% 40% 76% 80%
Comedy 19% 26% 33% 16% - -
Crime - 3% - - - -
Drama 15% 19% 10% 8% - -
Historical Epics 19% 10% - 12% 5% -
Horror/Thriller - 16% 10% 4% - -
Musical 15% 6% - - - -
Animated/Family 12% - 5% 20% 19% 20%

And sure, the matrix is crap for many reasons – one of the three films in the “Historical Epic” column for the 90s column is “Titanic”, the single highest-grossing film in decades, but it counts as much and not more than “Liar, Liar”. Titanic, incidentally is a movie which probably qualifies as action/adventure if you squint at it right.

And I’m sure that your personal matrix would vary: I put “Alien” in the horror category, not action-adventure. I put “Blazing Saddles” in comedy instead of western. 'Saving Private Ryan" is in historical rather than drama. Make your own damn spreadsheet.

My point is that if you take the movies with lots of explosions and ludicrous, unrealistic action-sequences and lump them into one category, it is THAT category that balloons year-over-year, not “superhero” movies.

20

That was my first takeaway as well, hah. And don’t get me wrong, a lot of modern fare has elements of comedy do it (e.g., Guardians of the Galaxy and Shrek and Jumanji), but there does seem to be a dearth of purer comedies. Though I guess how one defines that kinda varies. My favorite comedies are Clue, Rat Race, and Ghostbusters, and each of those are also genre flicks, incorporate lots of extra elements, etc.

Sorry, weird tangent, I know.

Anyway, another thing that stuck out to me was

I don’t think it’s so much you being an old man, Triple-D, so much as it kinda reminds me of similar sentiments expressed by lots of nerdy folks over the last few years. A sort of sense of “Well shit, I suffered hell in elementary/middle/high school/college/life in general for liking nerdy/geeky/dweeby/weird things, and now they’re popular? Dammit, that invalidates my suffering!”

I’m exaggerating a little, obviously. Well, I mean, I’m sure the above sentence has been written more than once somewhere on the internet. But I think it sort of captures the general thrust of the feeling. Us nerds and geeks got picked on, bullied, stood up to Prom, name-called, and all sorts of shit for the weird things we enjoyed and did, and now suddenly all that stuff is turning into billion-dollar franchises and videogame consoles are outselling CDs and every kid on earth owns a Minecraft shirt and Iron Man is the most valuable cinematic superstar in the universe and X-Files got a revival, and, and, and!

And it’s a complicated little mix. It’s not just the “I suffered for being weird, and now people who like the same stuff I did are normal?” part. It’s also a sense of ownership, or being spurned, perhaps. Us nerds kept the tiny fires of comics and videogames and science fiction alive, cupped protectively in our Cheeto-stained palms, for decades, and now suddenly, they “belong” to everyone else? After all that we gave up for those properties, and after all that we poured into them, everyone gets to reap benefits we could scarcely imagine back when we were trading VHS tapes of imported Doctor Who recordings in the back room of a low-budget hotel where our annual FanCon was held for all of 300 people from the entire state?

And man. . . that’s a complicated thing to unpack. I mean, there’s probably some codgerly grumpiness to it, and probably some unappealingly miserly selfishness in some folks, too. . . but. . . I can kinda get that point, nonetheless.

But hey, as a metalhead, I can tell you that at least someday in the future, when the only movies that get made anymore are reboots of Nicholas Sparks rom-dramas, and everyone’s favorite thing is hyper-rap, nerdy shit will still be there, in the background, once more in need of its dedicated fans to help it weather the tides of mass culture until it can ascend again!