I am facing a crossroads in my life I am not entirely sure how to process. I have had a tremendous amount of good times enjoying the comic book and superhero boom in Hollywood for the past few decades yet I am starting to find myself losing near total interest in all upcomig comic book related movies. I know it isn’t a lack of interest in the characters or stories, because I am still reading comics, buying toys of comic book characters and still semi-regularly playing comic book related video games. Yet I find myself at a near complete zero interest in regards to the films these days.
I should point out it isn’t the entire genre, if you wanna call it that, that I have lost nearly all interest in. I still very consistently re-watch my favorite comic book and superhero movies on a regular basis. I just find myself burnt out on keeping up with all the new stuff. Now this isn’t the first time this has happened to me. The decade leading up to the official launch of what became the MCU had an over abundance of comic book related films too. I found myself immediately extremely excited for the constant barrage of new comic based movies getting fed to me all the time. Then right before the actual MCU started I just dropped off and lost nearly all interest. I didn’t watch any of the X-Men or Spider-Man films post those initial trilogies until several years later.
The same things happend with Batman and even the lesser known stuff that was getting released. Sure I saw Daredevil when it was first brought to home media and I even watched Elektra in theaters. But there quickly became far more comic book movies to keep track of than I was reasonably capable of doing so at that time. Then the Dark Knight hit immediately followed by the full on MCU. I was quickly drawn back in. It was right around the time of Avengers Endgame that I started to lose interest again. I watched a few of the DCEU stuff and the first couple of post-Endgame MCU projects before burn out really kicked in.
The thing is I still fully enjoy the comic book movies I watch even after the fact, yet I just can’t seem to bring myself to get excited enough to watch any of them when they are still in theaters or even immediately after coming home. Despite Batman being my favorite superhero and actually enjoying Suicide Squad more than most, I still haven’t brought myself to watch The Batman. I know I would probally really like it, yet I just can’t sit down and put it on even though I have it on DVD and digital in my private collection. Yeah, I own it in two different formats and I still haven’t seen it. I can’t figure out why this is.
It’s the same thing with the new Superman and Fantastic Four movies. From what I have seen, I am sure I’d enjoy them. Yet I just can’t make myself load them up and press play. I am not sure why this is. I know I am burnt out. I also know, from past experience, I will probably rekindle my fire for these sooner or later. I just can’t seem to get excited for things that once brought me so much joy.
As I take a step back and look at everything in my life, I am in my early 40’s at this point, I find there are several other areas of my life I used to have a strong interest in that I find myself just less so these days. I am sure some of that is my approaching middle aged. Yet I still harbor strong feelings of passion for many of these things, including comic books and comic based movies. I don’t get excited for new movies, but I still passionately discuss my favorite comic based films. I even binge the four main Avengers films at least once a month, so I know I still emjoy revisting these outlandish worlds. I guess I am either getting burnt out, or getting older. Either way it’s actually kinda discouraging. I know I want to enjoy things, but I find it is getting harder to do so.
Stephanie Bri 