Spider-Man: The New Day will be released in two weeks, and its release carries a little more weight than usual. Not only does it have to reboot Spider-Man, but it also has to create tons of money and prove that superhero movies aren’t dead after all.
When Supergirl low performancean anonymous studio executive wanted to say The Hollywood Reporter: “Gen Z doesn’t care about superheroes. The genre belongs to millennials.” This is a claim that is not entirely false; Take a look at how this demographic has fared by streaming this year Back rooms and Amazing Digital Circus. In general, the 2020s have not been good against supers critically or financiallybut a survey last February revealed From 10 years to 24 years they’re more interested in kids who can actually feel things, something many superheroes can’t quite articulate on screen.
But how true is that? Iman Vellani, known for playing Ms. Marvel in the MCU, recently did an AMA League of Comic Geeks. Asked about the studio executive’s thesis, he countered the common perception that his generation doesn’t care about superhero movies. “Westerns and musicals and romcoms have gone through it. Every genre goes through periods,” he said. “Our generation grew up with a lot of superhero stories, so maybe the novelty wears off, and that’s natural. The bar is higher now, and we’re looking for stories that feel special and emotional — especially in the age of AI.”
Vellani’s advice? Studios “need to make superhero movies that evolve and grow with their audience. I think Generation Z responds incredibly well to superheroes when they’re treated as human beings. We want honesty from our storytellers. We want our intelligence to be respected. The answer is not to abandon the genre, but to find new stories.” this genre.”
According to Vellani, the superhero fatigue that people often talk about may be more evidence of this specific, legacy franchises are declining rather than a particular genre as a whole. Different demographics of viewers have found work in recent times to try to do something different: Invincible, Thunders, and even his own Ms. Marvel they felt like a breath of fresh air in terms of their subject matter and their approach to what superhero stories are. We still have it New Day and December Avengers: Judgment Day to help define where superheroes are culturally, and they’ll probably make some money. But we may have to wait for the superhero movies to fall flat to really determine if anyone at the top level thinks like Vellani. 2027 and 2028.
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