I continue to be frustrated by how few movies I’m getting to see these days. I’m close to calling it a slump at this point.
Theatrical excursions are few and far between, though I’m excited to get out to see Captain Marvel this week since it’s a fun character and I’m looking forward to the expansion of the Marvel Cinematic Universe through it. But I haven’t been out to see anything else since Alita: Battle Angel and I’ve not even watched anything at home. The time to just be able and sit and watch stuff is minimal and the backlog I do have of films are often tied to other people that I want to watch them with, which complicates it even more.
This week did at least net me a few sales on iTunes after the Academy Awards as a lot of stuff went up at a discount. Very little in terms of winners, of course, because they want to get a better price from those that are interested in winners and nominees. But they did have Bohemian Rhapsody at a buy-in price that I liked and I enjoyed it when I did see it in the theater. But my more housebound family members weren’t able to go so now they get to check it out.
I also grabbed The Bookshop for a good price as I had liked the trailer for it last year and even went so far as to read the novel before it came out. I also dug into a title that looked intriguing last year that hit for $5 with Kin, which just clicked in terms of a fun kind of ’80s approach to it. I also went back a couple of years to get the $5 sale for The Man from UNCLE as I really enjoyed Henry Cavill’s performance here even while having little love for the original show.
So, with a lighter load this week, I wanted to go back to a familiar well where it’s said there are too many superhero films coming out. Keeping in mind that each year sees about 500 films hitting the American market, can this be true? Here’s what’s coming out so far:
- Shazam (DC)
- Joker (DC)
- Glass (Universal)
- Hellboy (Lionsgate)
- Captain Marvel (Marvel)
- Avengers: Endgame (Marvel)
- Dark Phoenix (Fox)
- Spider-Man: Far From Home (Marvel/Sony)
- The New Mutants (Fox)
So yeah, there’s not a lot, but I will admit that they do dominate the narrative simply because of their popularity and the widespread marketing that hits. But that can be said whenever there’s a genre of film that’s taking up most of the attention, from musicals back in the day to westers to science fiction movies. Thankfully, there’s enough variety to characters, situations, and intent that they don’t really overlap each other too much unless you just paint all superhero films as the same. Which you wouldn’t do with other genres, most of the time. In the meantime, take a gander at the year in film and see what you may be missing because of the marketing onslaught that does come from these movies.
