You couldn’t go online in 2023 without encountering a eulogy for the superhero genre, which was declared dead or dying by the BBC in March, Paste in May, and Slate in December. These and many other publications observed a string of dire box office results, but varied in their analysis of the problem’s source and severity. Arguing that “heroes have been strip-mined,” Variety warned that with so many movies being churned out, even iconic heroes had become boring. James Gunn’s Superman, the piece argued, “is going to feel like it’s about the 12th Superman.”
Maybe Gunn’s Superman didn’t really feel new, but that prediction underestimated just how much we love Krypton’s favourite son. Superman raked in $220 million over its opening weekend, good for the year’s third-biggest debut. For context, that’s more money than The Marvels made during its entire run, a debacle that triggered much of that 2023 gravedigging.
