BlueThunder25
Gone Fishin'
What if Man of Steel (2013) had been far worse than OTL and became a major box office failure? How does this affect the future of Superman and other superhero films?
Like $300-400 million or less at the box office instead of OTL $668 million.It depends. What kind of box office failure are we talking about in here?
DC will double down on the wrong things, as they have so far in reaction to the critical devastation of their films. They want everyone to be grim-dark Batman. But not everyone is grim-dark Batman, and it sure as hell is not Superman. It's like they're embarrassed that they're doing comic book superheroes, and make them dark, gritty, and literally and metaphorically desaturate all the color from them. It also hearkens back to the problem of the Dark Age of comics in the 90s, where they see something that is mature, but are so tone deaf that their only take away is to go grim and gritty.
They're obviously embarrassed to be doing comic book superheroes, and are only doing so because they believe there's a built-in market that will buy it anyways because it's a familiar brand name. Unfortunately, they're close enough to being right that they won't be forced to change course.
That is a problem. People criticize fan boys as the people that complain about films and franchises. No, fan boys are the people that go see bad movies because it has a logo and brand name they like, and will argue to the death that it was the best despite all legitimate criticism.