Spider-Man: Same Old “Fatigue”

“Superhero fatigue is real, but Spider-Man fatigue is not,” says analyst Jeff Bock of Exhibitor Relations. “This is the first big superhero film of the summer, and there is so much goodwill following Spider-Man.”

When does the hurting stop?

That’s a quote from a recent Variety article about the success of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, the movie that chose the wrong title given the title’s comic history (like anyone at Marvel Studios or Sony cares). An article that stars with “Superhero fatigue is no match for Peter Parker.” Look, I’m happy for it. It’s been Spider-Man in name and costume design only since the first MCU movie, but at least something they’re doing is working. Congrats.

Hollywood still doesn’t understand the problem. Of course.

Why would they? The narcissistic cool kids who treat the world like they’re still in high school (maybe that’s why Peter is never allowed to get to college anymore) still want to take that geeky stuff and make it theirs because the everything for meeeeeeeeee crowd hates those nerdy comic fans and anything not made for them or the people they want to be like. Marvel Studios, a company founded on whatever characters the previous owners didn’t give the rights away to during bankruptcy and a desire to get the adaptation correct to make fans (the ones who buy all the merchandise) happy while bringing in new fans and casual audiences, have done none of that since the Disney takeover.

There are issues (no pun intended) with the comics right now, too, which the last owners still allowed to happen, like that other “Brand New Day”. The current owners are ignoring the comics completely so long as they have a bunch of names and concepts to ignore everything else to lazily create the “important media”. They don’t pay attention to fan response and leave that to secret activists happily feeding them lies to push their agenda, and creators willing to play ball in the hopes of getting royalties if a character they create shows up in the movies, Disney+, or some video game.  Considering they’re not activists themselves, but it’s more ego and greed, and if they have to use the various culture shields to not be critiqued they’ll do it. Hollywood is just full of people playing everyone for suckers, including each other, convinced the existing fanbase is gullible enough to play along. Less and less…they aren’t.

Of course they aren’t the real problem, but the people who opened the door that allowed them to sneak in, the “cool kids” of the everything for meeeeeeeeeeee crowd I mentioned. They didn’t understand why we liked this “junk” when it wasn’t popular, and now that it is they still don’t know or care why. They just assume they can make it better because their perspective is the only one that matters, like the bully that made fun of you for reading comics or playing D&D, or your choice in video games if not games at all that weren’t approved by the high council of them. They failed and continue to fail to understand what we wanted, so the only ones going are those few gullible brand loyalists they did manage to get, critics both professional and personal who need to see it for a paycheck, and nobody who just wants to “own the chuds” who push for things in movies they never watch or comics they never read. It’s tough to have fatigue of something they don’t really make, or at least don’t appear to be anymore. Let’s look at more of this article from Variety contributor Rebecca Rubin.

Spider-Man joins Batman and Superman as some of the most prolific superheroes of all time. The character — portrayed in prior adventures by Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield — has appeared in nine standalone, live-action films in the past 24 years. (Holland’s web-slinging vigilante has made several appearances in MCU crossover events, such as “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Endgame.”)

The only superheroes that can get good adaptations. Though Batman: Caped Crusader & Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man exist.

Glazing over Maguire and Garfield’s versions is a mistake. I haven’t seen No Way Home because I find the MCU take too far removed for me personally. (That’s not a slam of the movies, just totally personal fan preference and I am NOT a paid reviewer…though if someone wants to pay me to see these movies, I’m open to discussion.) From what I can tell, though, it kind of made the case that these are three different versions of the character. Some of the reviewers I follow seemed happier to see Maguire back than either Garfield or Holland. Did they finally allow him some good quipping?

These days, Peter Parker might be more popular than the ubiquitous Clark Kent — although that’s not an entirely fair comparison because the Warner Bros.-owned DC Studios is in the process of rebooting its own superhero universe. Last year’s “Superman,” which introduced David Corenswet as the Man of Steel, was modestly successful with $616 million. “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” will outgross the entire run of “Superman” in just one weekend.

So much unintended symbolism here.

Let’s clarify that: The MCU version of Peter played by Tom Holland for the MCU is more popular than the DC Gunnverse version of Superman played by David Corenswet. Holland and Corenswet have been shown to be good for their parts, but the difference is who worked on those stories. Spider-Man: Brand New Day, at least from trailers, looks to be about a hero being heroic. It has bright colors, fun action, character development as Peter now has to live in a world where to everyone else, including his loved ones, he never existed. Destin Daniel Cretton is giving the impression of understanding the hero…which is an improvement over what we saw going into Shang-Chi & The Legend Of The Ten Rings, which got both Shang-Chi, Master Of Kung-Fu, and the Mandarin, who is supposed to be Iron Man’s most dangerous enemy, wrong. Even the 10 Rings are inaccurate because he wanted to do a mystical martial arts movie instead of a sci-fi piece.

Meanwhile nothing looked right about James Gunn’s Superman By James Gunn. It wasn’t about Superman but using him to get Warner Brothers to allow him to make whatever he wanted, a movie where Superman was sent to conquer the world and repopulate the Kryptonian species. He had genetically engineered monkeys trashing Superman, which everyone assumes is a reference to his short-lived cancellation for questionable jokes on social media. Most of the marketing was about James Gunn, and Krypto was breed-swapped into his dog. The Supergirl of his universe is the last person you want coming to “help” when her proper comic portrayal is the exact opposite. He cast the right people then failed to properly portray the right characters. Accuracy aside, MCU Spidey is very popular and even I understand why. DC Studios Superman is not and I can also see why, which hurts me as Superman is my favorite superhero…when done right.

In terms of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, its movies that revolve around established heroes — such as 2024’s “Deadpool & Wolverine” and 2022’s “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” — have remained huge box office draws. Installments that centered around lesser-known characters, like 2025’s “Captain America: Brave New World,” “Thunderbolts” and “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” or sequels that didn’t establish a compelling reason to exist, such as 2023’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” were unsuccessful at breaking out beyond the franchise’s core fanbase.

Where do I begin?

How many Fantastic Four movies have existed over the years? Going back to Roger Corman’s failed attempt because the studio just wanted to keep the license and never planned to release it…no, I don’t care about Hollywood snobbery! Let’s go to the cartoons! Hanna-Barbera put out the first Fantastic Four cartoon in 1967. In 1978 they released The New Fantastic Four, replacing the Human Torch with H.E.R.B.I.E. the robot because Johnny Storm was licensed for a potential solo movie that never happened, while a kid in Thing’s clothing was part of an anthology show with the Flintstones. Two other cartoons followed, with 2006’s World’s Greatest Heroes being rather highly praised in some of my circles. Three live-action movies prior to First Steps, only one of which was remotely good granted, also came out and did pretty well.

So calling the FF “lesser-known” is silly when discussing a movie universe started by a character who also only popular because he had animated series outside his comics, while also praising Black Panther, a character literally nobody outside of comics heard about until his movie besides some cartoon cameos and a terrible solo cartoon, as popular. Do you even know your own timeline,  paid entertainment reporter who might need a better editor and research assistant? Speaking of jobs I could do…

Half of the “Thunderbolts*” were MCU established. It’s just the only one anybody cared about was Bucky, the Winter Soldier. Everybody in Captain America: Brave New World was established, but had since been damaged by their previous outings if not that movie. I can’t comment on Quantumania as the only Ant-Man movie I liked was the first one and had no interest in the third one after the first Wasp addition film, but the ones that can…haven’t had nice comments to make. Basically, her examples suck.

“Audiences are tired of seeing the same thing. There are too many connected storylines, and it’s turning entertainment into homework,” says Bock. He believes there’s something called “consequence fatigue” in a cinematic universe where the laws of nature don’t apply. “If every death can be reverse and every universe can be replaced, why should audiences be invested? People gravitate toward Spider-Man because Sony has always done a good job of balancing the superhero and everyday person who inhabits the costume.”

That’s becoming a problem in the comics, too. Someone wants to kill a character off, either for the shock value or personal hatred of the character, but the next writer or the fans loved the character and wanted them back. It’s another ego over story clash. On the other hand, it’s not that the stories are connected, but they’re poorly connected and someone is clearly not even trying to keep things coherent because they don’t want to. A good shared universe is an expanding continuity that feels like normal life, and like normal life you don’t need to know every minute detail to go about your day. Shared universes get in the way of doing whatever the hell they want, while a poorly tied universe leaves no good blueprint to follow. I’ll grant the interviewee this one, at least in part.

It also helps that “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” aside from the character’s massive popularity, has a compelling hook and positive reviews. Destin Daniel Cretton, who helmed the well-received 2021 Marvel adventure “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,”

took over directing duties from Jon Watts, who helmed the first three “Spider-Man” films with Holland. “Spider-Man 4″ arrives a few months before Marvel’s “Avengers: Doomsday,” which will bring back the kitchen sink of comic-book characters on Dec. 18 and could rival “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” as the year’s biggest release.

That might come back to bite Marvel Studios and Sony. Watts’s Spider-Man was well received, but I assure you that whatever the box office tells you Crettons’ Shang-Chi was not. It’s still treated as a joke by the people who rewatch these movies on streaming or TV, get the home video, and buy all the crap connected to it. That movie is part of what’s causing the alleged “fatigue” because of how poorly it treated a decades old character and stuffed Awkwafina in there for no quality reason. Fans don’t want to see beloved characters ruined and casual audience don’t want to see things with terrible stories just because it has good looking clip material.

Beyond this calendar year, Marvel has heavy hitters like “Avengers: Secret Wars” in 2027 and “Black Panther 3” in 2028, as well as question marks like the newly announced “Ghost Rider” reboot with Ryan Gosling and an untitled “X-Men” movie in development. After a bumpy run following the epic culmination of “Endgame,” Marvel Studios expressed a desire to focus on quality over quantity. (The comic book empire had been cranking out as many as four films a year.) It’s unclear what that’ll look like over the long run. But with an opening weekend like the one that “Brand New Day” is about to enjoy, Spidey will certainly keep swinging back for new adventures — at least until the 30-year-old Holland’s knees give out.

I don’t have a big sampling of how Gosling’s Ghost Rider is being received, and we don’t know which Ghost Rider it is. Black Panther 3 is going to have son of T’Challa because the actor who played T’Challa is considered more important than the decades old comic character despite both the late actor and his family stating otherwise. The more we hear about the next Avengers movie arc both in spoilers and what’s going on behind the scenes (the BS spouted by actors in their private lives has no bearing to me on the movie, just what they say about that movie) isn’t exactly inspiring confidence.

“The Spider-Man story and its hero are dependable and archetypal — an awkward, powerless person accidentally finds his superpower and uses it to help others,” says David A. Gross, who runs the movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research. “It’s a winning formula, every time.”

I wish more superhero storytellers understood that. I’m not convinced this movie will be good given the director’s past work and replacing the one people liked, but the box office doesn’t tell you everything, and maybe he is better suited for Spider-Man than Shang-Chi. Opening weekend is only as successful as the word of mouth afterwards, whether by professional critics, the rising YouTube and blogging critics, or just an expanding group of opinions by the regular people who watch these things and then go back to their real lives. Maybe if that formula was applied more, and the adaptations as honest as Marvel Studios used to be, nobody would be talking about fatigue except the anti science fiction and fantasy snobs in the Hollywood industry who want it and other action movies to go away. The audience decides what stories they want. If you don’t make them…we’ll find someone who will, and given modern technology there are a lot more of those than you think with the ability to do it and the reach to get them out there. Something to think about. Your audience is now your competition.