Can the Joker musical or Superman save the world from ‘superhero fatigue’?

Is it a sign of the times for superhero movies that James Gunn, the man charged with resurrecting DC’s prospects on the big screen – not to mention restoring Superman to his former glories – thinks comic book films need less spectacle and more emotional grounding? Gunn admitted this week that audiences are beginning to turn away from the genre, and even hinted that the likes of Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola may have a point when they criticise Marvel and DC.

“I think there is such a thing as superhero fatigue. I think it doesn’t have anything to do with superheroes. It has to do with the kind of stories that get to be told, and if you lose your eye on the ball, which is character,” Gunn told Rolling Stone. “We love Superman. We love Batman. We love Iron Man. Because they’re these incredible characters that we have in our hearts. And if it becomes just a bunch of nonsense on screen, it gets really boring.

“But I get fatigued by most spectacle films, by the grind of not having an emotionally grounded story. It doesn’t have anything to do with whether they’re superhero movies or not. If you don’t have a story at the base of it, just watching things bash each other, no matter how clever those bashing moments are, no matter how clever the designs and the VFX are, it just gets fatiguing, and I think that’s very, very real.”

Remember, these comments come from the man newly installed as the head of DC, the studio responsible for some of the most knuckle-headed, least character-driven movies in history. Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice’s idea of emotional grounding was the preposterous bit near the end where Bats and Supes stop smacking the living bejesus out of each other for five minutes because they realise their mothers shared the same name. The recent Black Adam was two hours-plus of Dwayne Johnson smashing into people and things. I am struggling to remember any moments in which he sat down with his therapist and discussed a troubled youth on the mean streets of ancient Kahndaq.

Perhaps this is the reason Gunn has been brought in. And you have to say, his comments bode well for Superman: Legacy, which the one-time Marvel stalwart is writing and directing. Many fans felt Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, starring Henry Cavill, was two-thirds of a decent movie, followed by a final act resembling a whirlwind of pixels smashing into each other ad infinitum. A little insight into Superman’s psyche as the issue of two very different cultures – one exotically alien, the other homespun and rustic – would help make for a different kind of superhero blockbuster.

Perhaps Gunn and DC owner Warner Bros have been inspired by the success of Joker, a relatively low-budget paean to 1970s crime movies that didn’t need a single special effects-laden mega-battle to get past $1bn at the global box office – and even won an Oscar. The sequel, Joker: Folie à Deux, will see Joaquin Phoenix and new Harley Quinn Lady Gaga venturing into musical territory as they explore the melodic fever dreams of Arkham Asylum. It might be fabulous, it might be a flop, but its mere existence means nobody can accuse DC of lacking a sense of adventure.

On the other hand, isn’t DC still just about functioning as a movie studio precisely because some fans liked movies such as Suicide Squad, Batman vs Superman, and even the original Justice League, just enough to keep the box-office greenbacks rolling in? All that brain-numbing violence seemed a big part of the studio’s appeal at the multiplexes – if not with critics – back in the Zack Snyder era.

Gunn also spoke about Marvel during his Rolling Stone interview, saying his former studio is finding it “hard to write stories” since the climactic events of 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, and the universe-shaking “blip”. He may be right, yet even Marvel’s most mindless, effects-laden material is rarely as synapse-mashingly brain boggling as the worst of the DC efforts.

Gunn has a major task on his hands if DC is to become the home of thoughtful, intelligent superhero flicks. And it would be interesting to see how the more neanderthal members of the studio’s hardcore fanbase – those who felt Batman wielding a gun was a great idea! – might take to a brave new world of reflective or avant-garde comic book movies.