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Superhero movies: supersmashes or superblesses

 

            Superhero Movies: Supersmashed or Superblessed.
            
             Everybody who has kept an eye on the celluloid industry for the last three years must have noticed that a great number of the movies that have made it big time the last couple of years and are, or have been, in the spotlights this year are movies based comic book properties, superhero comic books in particular. The current superhero tsunami started in 2000 with the release of X-men, which was followed by movies as Blade, Spider-man, X2, and many more are waiting to be released in the next couple of months and years. However, the theme of superheroes has not always been that popular in the movie industry. Just as Superman was the first American comic book superhero, he was also the first superhero to be featured in a superhero movie based on a comic book character. The movie, Superman, was released in 1941 and several other movies followed in the next 35 years, but it was Superman (1978) starring Christopher Reeve that is considered to be the first successful superhero movie and has paved the way for all those which followed. After the movie grossed six times its budget, a sequel just had to follow and successfully did so. In 1980, Superman II was released and being just as a smash as the first movie, two more sequels followed in 1983 and 1987 respectively, but both failed miserably. It wasn't until the 1989 Batman, that the public became exalted over a movie with a superhero as main character again. Given its success, it was inevitable that this movie also spawned multiple sequels in the next 10 years. Unfortunately their success followed the same logarithmic wave the Superman movies did. After Batman & Robin (1997), superhero movies were out of grace with the general public. In 2000, Fox released the aforementioned X-men. Due to the movie's success, film companies' trust in the potential of comic books to make movies out of characters that had their origin in the medium returned.


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