The superheroes that did emerge on the big screen in this time period (especially those who weren’t the Boy Scout or the Bat) tended to be strange and less well-known they represented filmmakers, studios and stars experimenting to find out what the winning formula would eventually prove to be and, more often than not, failing to find their own success along the way.ĭon’t know your Shadow from your Spawn, your Mystery Men from your Mask? (And while we’re on the subject, what the hell is a Guyver anyway?) Well, we at The Film Magazine are here to help.

Despite this, in the 1990s the capes and spandex obsession had yet to take hold.

Hollywood had been obsessed with genre trends before – Westerns in the 50s and disaster movies in the 70s, for instance – and had even had brief dalliances with comic book adaptations with Christopher Reeve’s Superman movies and the Tim Burton/Michael Keaton Batman films. They certainly weren’t the most popular and profitable film genre on the planet, nor were they the go-to click-bait discussion topic for hack film journalists to bring up while interviewing well-respected directors.

Once upon a time, superhero movies did not dominate the Hollywood blockbuster landscape.

Chinese company, super hero films