Audiences can be fickle. If movie genres can not impress them long enough, and something bigger and better comes along, the viewer’s collective gaze will shift to the next big thing. WhileThe Hunger GamesandDivergentwere big dystopian franchises, by the timeThe Maze Runnercame around, viewers had already moved on to thegrowing traction of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.Harry PotterandTwilightwere able to keep the young adult fantasy genre alive, butThe Mortal Instruments: City of Bonescould not run with the build-up the two other franchises had started. Even teen and adult rom-coms hit pitfalls when they disappeared in favor of big-budget superhero films and live-action remakes.
Between the DCU’s inability to have a strong presence in the superhero game and Marvel’s recent dwindling quality of its movies, the superhero genre may be the latest in an array of failing films. Meanwhile, other forms of movies, such as Westerns, pirates, or parodies, have stopped being nearly as frequent as they had been at their peak. While the occasional musical comes out, they are now more frequent on streaming than blockbuster theatrical releases. Even art went out of style when 2D animation started being replaced.
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Teen Rom-Coms Are Just Coming Back
Teen rom-coms and other types of teen movies had once ruled the screen. While there have been more teen rom-coms over the years, they had been increasingly less popular to the general public until Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+ offered new content.To All The Boys I’ve Loved Beforeplayed a role in re-igniting the public’s interest in teen rom-coms. The simplicity of a teen love story has retaken the audience’s interest. The new portrayals of teen rom-coms do not always fall into the problematic behaviors of movies in the past, offering a unique, fresh perspective that matches a changing world.
Adult Rom-Coms Disappeared for a While
Just like teen rom-coms, adult rom-coms disappeared from the public eye for a while. As it turns out, they needed a similar rebranding that the teen films embraced. Leaving the problems in the past, the new set of adult rom-coms involved poking fun at the tropes in previous movies,such asIsn’t It Romantic,while still including a solid heart for the film to rely on. Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher bring a fun familiarity to the genre in Netflix’sYour Place or Mine.
Superhero Fatigue Is Hurting MCU and DCU
Between the MCU, Disney+ Marvel originals, and the DCU,audiences have potentially had it with superhero content. There is so much of it, and with their quality being questionable after the DCU’s failures and Marvel’s growing controversy surrounding the quality of their content, the excitement that followed superhero movies may not be so prominent anymore. In the aftermath ofSpider-Man: No Way HomeandBlack Panther: Wakanda Forever, the thrill of new superhero movies is far less than what it had been in preparation forAvengers: Endgame.
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Dystopian Futures Got too Repetitive
Rather thandevelop dystopian adaptationsthat followed different stories, studios piggybacked off the success ofThe Hunger GameswithDivergentandThe Maze Runner.The Hunger Gameshad been a vastly different project, upholding a teenage protagonist with a dark fate and revolution in front of her, which worked in a world trying to find the next big thing asHarry Potterwas ending. The story of a Chosen One who did not want their fate but was the face of change allowed the two franchises to feel connected enough for the shift to make sense.
Unfortunately, rather than take a risk and expand the dystopian genre with different versions of the story, the studios landed onDivergent, which was not successful enough to finish the franchise,The Maze Runner, which concluded but did not live up to the excitement of the previous two, and a subpar adaptation ofThe Giver. For the most part, young adult dystopian series share many of the same storylines. But, some had enough alterations to allow them to stand out rather than making it feel like viewers saw slightly different versions of the same story.
Fantasy Features Couldn’t Hold Up to Big Franchises
Star Wars, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Twilight,andAvatarhave been some of the biggest franchises of the last two decades. WhileThe Chronicles of Narniatried to make strides, the films stuck to the Pevensie siblings in a story that likely would have been better presented as a television series rather than a movie trilogy. The biggest fantasy films have large worlds that have easily allowed the audiences to become immersed in the characters, stories, or locations.
Whether it beexperiencing the continuingStar Warssagaor experiencing the supernatural worldTwilightintroduces with vampires and werewolves, these franchises had become so popular that other, smaller, fantasy films could never continue the genre.
2-D Animation Was Replaced
As technology became more complex, studios replaced 2-D animation with the next big thing. It is not so much that the artistry of animation became less valuable, as that is not the case. Bigger studios like Disney, Pixar, and DreamWorks found that 3-D animation was a more exciting avenue. However, Disney did bring 2-D animation back forMary Poppins Returnsas an homage to the original film.
Westerns Died Out
While Westerns are still occasionally made, they do not run the box office. Like other types of movies, Westerns were run out of town, partly by the growing superhero genre. Audiences traded cowboy hats for capes, batmobiles, shields, and hammers, more interested in the flashiness of big-time savers than in small-town rodeos.Back to the Future: Part 3delivered an ode to the Western-style movie, but they have never been as popular in recent years as they had once been when Clint Eastwood was the face of the Western film.
Musicals Couldn’t Keep Up
Outside of Disney’s array of soundtrack films and DreamWorks’Trollsseries, the more successful musicals have beenThe Greatest Showman,thePitch Perfecttrilogy,La La Land,andNetflix’s Tick Tick… Boom. While musicals can be fun, the unnecessaryMamma Mia!sequel never held up to the original, and theWest Side Storyremake was not enough to jump-start a series of new musical blockbusters. While dancing movies, such as theStep-UpandMagic Mikeseries, could stay alive for a decent amount of time, musicals have not been as big a deal in blockbuster films for a while.
Big Parodies
Parody films such asNot Another Teen Movie,Vampires Suck, The Starving Games, Epic Movie, Disaster Movie, and theScary Movieseries may not have been massive blockbuster hits, but there was a time when they were far more common. While satire films have still played a role in media, such asDo Revengecommenting on classic teen moviesandDon’t Look Upmaking a satire of the world’s refusal to acknowledge climate change, they are not the same as blatantly making fun of a variety of films and causing utter chaos.
While they may not have done much other than make fun of the shows, movies, or tropes they referenced, parody movies could still be fun.
Pirates Could Not Stick Around
Pirate movies also hit a wall, never quite able to stick around. AlthoughPirates of the Caribbeanwas popular, that franchise alone could not hold up an entire film genre. Although they may appear in other types of movies, pirates alone are not strong enough to hold an audience. Outside ofPirates of the Caribbean,the closest the pirate genre comes to being a significant part of media is through Captain Hook and his fellow peers inPeter Panremakes.
