After a decade of dominating the box office, superheroes were knocked off their pop culture throne in 2023.
The big picture: This year was filled with comic book sequels that drew less money than their predecessors, including new entries for "Guardians of the Galaxy," "Ant-Man" "Shazam!" and "The Flash," the latter of which even brought back Michael Keaton as Batman. It wasn't just comic books that suffered: Other long-running franchises including "Indiana Jones" and "Mission: Impossible" also disappointed. By contrast, "John Wick," "Scream" and "Creed" saw some of their franchises' best performances. James Gunn is starting a new cinematic universe for DC, which begins in 2025 with "Superman: Legacy."
Why the Fall of Comic-Book Movie Culture Is Inevitable
It's fair to say fans and regular moviegoers alike are sick to death of the Multiverse. That's a problem for Marvel Studios when it's waist-deep into the "Multiverse Saga," but if Madame Web drops the ball on this premise in the same way as The Flash, it will do the genre no favours.
While that ill-fated DCEU movie did a fine job of exploring the notion of an older Barry Allen meeting his younger self, it complicated the concept by building a whole new timeline around a single decision which, upon closer examination, made no sense. Needless to say, we don't expect the writers behind Morbius to have a firm or particularly clever grasp on the Multiverse concept, suggesting they'll find a way to screw this up.