The box office success of “Spider-man: across the spider-verse” is proof that superhero cinema fatigue was prematurely announced. The film’s writers and producers, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, were interviewed by Rolling Stone magazine in which they commented on whether superhero fatigue contributed to the unsatisfactory box-office performance of Shazam: The Wrath of the Gods and Ant-Man and the Wasp : Quantomania.
Creators of Across the Multiverse: When do audiences get bored?
“I don’t think it’s superhero movie fatigue, it’s movie fatigue that looks like a movie I’ve seen a dozen times,” Miller said. If you use the same script structure, the same style, the same tone and the same atmosphere as your previous films and series, it doesn’t matter what genre it is. People will get bored.
You can’t keep moviegoers on a diet of Easter eggs and plot twists, Lord added. Or even on a big, crazy multi-stakes diet. People only care about, for example, the relationship between Rocket the raccoon and Groot.
Miller and Lord point to Guardians of the Galaxy writer and director James Gunn as a character-centric Marvel filmmaker. In their opinion, the viewer watches Gunn’s films for the “family” element. They claim that this is also the case with “Across the Multiverse”.
The foundation of the story is the relationship between parents and children, Miles and his family, Lord explained. We showed the first movie to some friends early on and they told us we needed to get to all the Spider-men as soon as possible because that’s the exciting part. And we said, “I don’t think so.” What people like the most are the quiet scenes between Miles, his mum and dad. I am very happy that we have stayed true to what the audience tells us.
