Cinema at the global level is majorly made on the theme of good vs. evil. Cinema about superheroes and super villains is the bestseller nowadays. People love to watch a movie in which the characters have some sort of different powers. The villain seems untouchable because of his great power but the hero somehow finds a way to defeat the bad guy and save the world or city from a big trouble. People love to see action with some VFX. Although, not all of the movies have happy endings- there are movies where the superhero has to sacrifice something to defeat the villain but he does it to save the world.
The inspiration for these types of movies is majorly comic books. At first, people loved the idea of superheroes in comic books. So then, makers thought that these types of movies might make lots of money. The best example of this is that the 11 top-grossing films of 2017 were superhero movies, based on characters introduced in comics first. Superhero movies are so popular among the people that one type of this category has its own universe, called ‘the Marvel Universe’ as all the movies from the Marvel Studios are about superheroes. Marvel’s top movie was “Avengers: Endgame”. It earned around $858,373,000. The movie depicted the end of the story and the beginning of a new era of the Avengers, although it left many fans crying due to the death of one of the most loved characters of the movie- Iron-Man.
There is yet another superhero movie universe named ‘DC Cinematic Universe’. It has superhero characters named Aquaman, Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Black Adam, The Flash, etc. The highest grossing movie of this universe was “Aquaman” which earned around $1.148 billion. So, this proves that stories about superheroes are indeed loved by the audience and they are among the best movies with most loved characters. The myth of the hero’s journey is familiar. It all started with the Greeks and their stories of heroes like Hercules and Achilles. Superhero movies are seen by hundreds of millions, arguably the most consumed stories in human history.
There is no rule that says that films have to be about anything. These types of films are no harm to anyone. They are meant to be rapidly consumed and forgotten. This may be the reason why people love these types of movies so much. The fact about this is that everyone loves this type of a movie although they know it’s all just fiction. They love it because deep down everyone has thoughts like “what if I had a superpower”, etc. Another good aspect about these movies is that they are inspirational- anyone who feels down can look up to superheroes for inspiration and hope. We gravitate towards the superhero genre because it gives us hope that things could get better.
The reason behind the success of these types of films is that when you enter the theatre, you just feel like you are into another universe where anything and everything is possible in imagination. It’s like a mini vacation from the hectic and tedious life we all are living right now. You can sit back with your popcorn and enjoy the imaginary world!
Written by- Smithshill Macwan | Edited by- Apurv Nayak
