The most obvious choice for a superhero film is the Superman franchise, which began its illustrious rise to fame from unlikely beginnings, in a film titled ‘Superman and the Mole Men’ which was released in 1951. The film describes the perils faced by Superman as he tries to protect the ‘mole men’, who appear from a drilled hole containing radium, from an angry mob bent on killing the ‘monsters’. Despite a shaky start, and some very questionable plot themes, the Superman films really seemed to step into their stride in 1978 when Christopher Reeve was cast and have continued to delight and entertain since then, now creating multi-million dollar pictures starring some of the biggest names in film.
Another iconic superhero franchise is the Batman series of films which have seemed to increase in quality since 1966 when the first movie was released. Ignoring the travesty that was ‘Batman & Robin’ which, although featuring some of the huge names from the world of cinema was an unmitigated disaster, overall the films have been extremely popular. The most recent trilogy now features as some of the highest rated films of all time and has moved away from the kapows and thwacks we got used to during the TV series, to create gritty and entertaining films.
As time has gone on the lesser known comic book superheroes have made their way to the big screen. Characters like Thor, the Green Hornet and Elektra now have their own feature films and more and more films are now adopting the central theme of a protagonist with guardians possessing some kind of unnatural ability. Even the hugely successful Transformers franchise is now considered by some as a superhero series, as Optimus Prime strives to keep evil at bay using a team of transforming robots. Transformers continues to capture the attention of cinema-goers, as according to MoneyGaming.com, the Transformers film holds the record for the biggest opening week for a non-sequel with $152.5 million in takings.
It is difficult to predict the future of the superhero film genre and whether there are any comic books left worth converting to film. However some of the films with a superhero theme being created today did not stem from a comic book and, depending on your interpretation of the word superhero, the potential for the future of this genre is limitless.
