It became apparent very early on that 2016 was going to be the year of superhero movies. While previous years have seen quite a number of superhero movies as well, the 6 big titles scheduled to hit the screen this year pretty much eclipsed anything else up till now.
At this stage four of those six have already been released with Deadpool, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Captain America: Civil War and more recently X-Men: Apocalypse all already up on the big screen. If you’re interested in where the sets of these movies were located, you can check out the infographic by Truedor below.
Deadpool
As the first superhero movie to be released in 2016, no one quite knew what to expect from Deadpool. Getting the movie off the ground had been a battle, and it was on a tighter budget than most other superhero movies of its caliber. On top of that the decision to make it R-rated was risky, despite being a relief to fans of the comic book Deadpool who were worried that the character would be sanitized on the big screen.
When Deadpool was finally unleashed in cinemas, it was every bit the profanity-laced, ultra-violent spectacle that the fans had wanted. With a title character that openly mocked anything and everything under the sun, Ryan Reynolds’ performance was spot on.
While many people had hoped that Deadpool would do well, few could have predicted just how successful it would be. The fact that it is now Fox’s biggest hit on the superhero front is telling, and the movie set the bar pretty high for all the other superhero movies slated to follow it.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
For some time now DC has lagged behind Marvel on the movie front – and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was billed as the movie that was going to fix all that. It brought together DC’s two biggest superhero properties (Batman and Superman) and added a cast of other big name characters such as Wonder Woman, and Lex Luthor around them.
Unfortunately Batman v Superman failed to live up to the sizable expectations that were placed on it. In many ways it was a movie that tried to do too much. While the movie was busy setting the stage for the DC cinematic universe, incorporating tons of new characters and hinting at possible storylines it really didn’t manage to find much traction and nothing seemed to be sufficiently fleshed out.
The one silver lining from the movie was the inclusion of Wonder Woman who generally was well-received. The rest of the movie was pretty much slated by film critics and fans alike, and while it did do fairly decently on the box office it was definitely not the breakaway hit that DC was hoping it would be.
Captain America: Civil War
Although billed as a Captain America movie, most of the cast of Avengers reprised their roles while adding in some of Marvel’s new characters too. At the end of the day the lineup in Captain America Civil War included Scarlet Witch, Vision, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Falcon, Iron Man, War Machine and Ant Man from previous movies joined the all new Spider-Man as well as Black Panther.
When it was released, Captain America: Civil War became an instant hit. Having already introduced most of the characters and built them up in previous movies, it could skip most of the introductions and get down to telling the story. The only exceptions to this were Spider-Man (who everyone knows, let’s face it) and Black Panther, who was introduced fairly well.
In short the movie continued Marvel’s amazing performance so far and has even come to be regarded as one of its better movies. Certainly, it seems to have done better than the last Marvel big-ensemble movie (Avengers: Age of Ultron).
X-Men: Apocalypse
Just recently released, X-Men: Apocalypse is an interesting addition to the X-Men universe. It builds on the alternate history from the movie that preceded it (Days of Future Past) and features one of the X-Men’s most well-known villains from the comics. It also reintroduces new versions of fan-favorite characters such as Jean Gray, Cyclops, Storm and Nightcrawler, while adding new ones such as Psylocke into the mix.
Unfortunately early impressions of the movie itself have not been favorable. While it is still not a contender for the worst X-Men movie (that goes to X-Men: Last Stand), it is considered to be the worst of the recent movies that started with X-Men: First Class and was continued in Days of Future Past.
It is still too early to tell how it will perform in terms of box office revenue, but suffice to say it does not live up to the expectations of the studio – or the fans.
What’s Next?
That pretty much recaps the four superhero movies that have already been released and if you’ve been keeping score it’s pretty much at 2 hits and 2 misses so far. Of course the two remaining superhero movies that are yet to be released do show some early promise with Suicide Squad looking like it could maybe help DC salvage something from its cinematic universe.
At the same time Marvel’s Doctor Strange movie seems to have neatly sidestepped early controversy over its casting choices – and is now one of the more anticipated movies of the year.
Make no mistake, although the superhero movies of 2016 haven’t all been as successful as was hoped – it by no means is the end of the trend. In fact even the superhero movies that weren’t outright hits have still managed to do quite decently in terms of box office revenue and so movie studios will undoubtedly continue to make them. If anything perhaps the coming years will hold even more superhero movies as both Marvel, DC, and Fox start expanding further.
Originally published May 26, 2016. Updated November 12, 2018.
