There has been a lot of discussion of late over the future of the superhero movie, with Steven Spielberg recently predicting the genre would eventually go the way of the Western. Chris Evans is the latest to add his two cents to the mix, with the Captain America star suggesting that spandex and capes are going to be around for a good while yet…
Evans’ first point is technological advances have been the driving force behind the genre, and that said technology isn’t exclusive to superhero movies. “I certainly think that given the fact that technology has finally advanced, they’re always going to be looking for other films to match their technological accomplishments,” Evans told Collider. “Any film that can incorporate these larger-than-life characters and fantastical locations and plots, the technology wants to prove they can do it so whether it’s superhero film or fantasy in general, that’s going to surge for a while.”
Secondly, Evans also makes the point that the argument all depends on how you define a “superhero” movie. “In terms of ‘superhero’ in general, existing properties that we know and love, it’s going to be a matter of the tone they strike,” he continues. “You could look at Jason Bourne as a superhero. You could take any superhero movie and if you ground it enough, if you make it real enough—that’s what I think [Captain America: The Winter Soldier directors Joe and Anthony Russo] do really well.”
“Certain superhero movies feel like ‘superhero movies.’ Russo movies almost feel like human stories with a little bit of superhero sprinkled in. So you might get exhausted of the larger-than-life powers I suppose, but as long as the filmmakers keep on reinventing the flavour and the approach and the tone, audiences are going to still go.” Evans will be back in superhero action in Captain America: Civil War, which hits UK screens on April 29 2016 before opening in the US a week later.
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