Superheroes stole Hollywood. Will they ever give it back?

When Avengers: Endgame hits theatres today, it will mark the culmination of Marvel and Disney’s 11-year, 22-movie campaign aimed to utterly dominate the blockbuster box office industry. And it has been an incredibly successful campaign. But how did these types of movies (and yes, D.C. films count, too) come to so successfully dominate an entire industry, to the point that more than half of a given year’s top 10 box office earners are now superhero films? And will the general public ever get tired of them?

Norm Wilner has been watching and writing about movies since superhero flicks were rare and generally bad. What changed? How does the superhero formula manipulate an audience into watching similar movies 4-6 times per year? If the latest and greatest is terrible, would it change anything? Oh and, since he’s seen it in advance, is Endgame any good, anyway?

GUEST: Norm Wilner, NOW magazine, Someone Else’s Movie (You can read Norm’s review of Avengers: Endgame here.)

You can subscribe to The Big Story podcast on iTunes or Google Play.

You can also find it at thebigstorypodcast.ca.