Column: Climate change and the role of the media
April 2, 2015
This era in entertainment is good time to be a nerd. Left and right, studios are taking shots to create their own success with various super hero characters and comic book characters.
It started with movies. Slowly gaining acclaim, superhero movies like “Spiderman,” “Superman,” “Batman” and “Iron Man” truly opened mainstream audiences to the interesting exciting world of comic books and superheroes.
Now, a summer has not gone by with the expectation of at least three comic book movies hitting the theaters. Studios can also expect to make large amounts of money making these movies. Every year, at least one movie seems to break records. While the price of these films is high, they have been paying out in abundance.
Comic book adaptation success has also moved to the television. Spearheaded by networks like CW, these adaptations are gaining massive traction with mainstream audiences. Shows like “The Flash” and “Arrow” are gaining massive success.
“The Flash” premiere was The CW’s most watched telecast ever.
And more show and movies are yet to come gifting the world with the wonderful universes that comic books have been developing for decades. Nerds, like me, get to see what we have seen in comic books for years.
I am getting to enjoy some of the many things I loved in my comic books on the big screen. This is a dream era for someone like me. I don’t want it to end, but I think it might.
I worry TV and movies are coming dangerously close to flooding the market, turning a potentially sustainable genre into a fad. I worry that audiences might get to the point where they will feel burnt out by the amount of comic book movies hitting the market.
The comic book movie has been following a similar path the western movie followed at its prime in the ‘60s and the ‘70s.
The western was king in this time period. Because of this, back-to-back movies filled American cinema. This became detrimental to its success. They became so frequent, audiences were overwhelmed. Putting out these Westerns became more about quantity and quality.
Now, Westerns have become almost nonexistent in cinema except for the occasional movie like “True Grit,” which was a remake anyways.
I do not want the comic book movie to become a fad. I do not want it to be overdone. While I love seeing all of this content come out, I want it to last.
So like with anything else, I hope studios making these movies spread out their plans with these movies to avoid over saturation.
Studios need to learn from the mistake of the past and avoid an inevitable bombing of the comic book movie.
Jarad Jarmon is a senior journalism major. He can be reached at denopinions@gmail.com.