Comprehensive Analysis of Genre

Comprehensive Analysis of Genre

Comic book movies have made a huge impact on the industry over many decades and have changed drastically over time. For example, the original batman film in 1966 and those following it were originally aimed at young children and had a light-hearted tone to them. In 1989 the tone began to change and the directors began to take aim at a wider audience by taking a character so many people grew up with and taking that light-hearted, childish tone and giving it an epic feel. 

Further down the line, Christopher Nolan helped develop the industry by creating a gritty, dark and even more serious atmosphere in his Batman Trilogy which was received greatly by the fans of the genre and the character. This caused a ripple effect and other directors and screenwriters took note of how effective it was at changing the demographic of viewers and fans - many more teens and adults began to take comic book & superhero movies more seriously and saw that they weren't just for kids. So many more films in the genre are being made with this style as seen in the recent Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice.

This is just one iteration of how this genre of film has progressed for DC Comics' movies. Marvel have also used this technique in Captain America over the years:



Here we can see again how a film with a family which originally had a family friendly tone to it decades ago has been made into a much more serious film with a completely different atmosphere to its predecessor. This again encourages adults who grew up with the character (be it in comics or the original film) and children growing up to take an interest into the film; broadening its' target audience and allowing the movie studio to be successful in profiting from its release. These versions of captain america and batman are only a decade apart but differ so much, showing just how much a genre can progress in a relatively short time.