Will the Marvel bubble ever pop?

In a recent interview with Wired Magazine, Marvel movie overlord Kevin Feige casually tossed out the idea that there are movies planned up to 2021.  So of course, the internet has done its usual internet thing and completely crapped its pants.  We have a pretty solid idea what the next couple of years will be filled with: "Thor: The Dark World" comes to us this November, and the Cap is stepping out next year in "Winter Soldier".  And let's not forget the 2015 tent-pol mash up, "Avengers 2".

And all of these are movies that I'm excited to see.  But with Marvel releasing two films a year like clockwork, I have to wonder, will this incarnation of the Marvel universe ever get old?  I think that's a tough question to answer.  People who are complaining about the "over saturation" of comic-book movies are getting a bigger spot light, but does that really mean that they accurately represent the movie-going public?  As I've mentioned before, "Avengers", and more recently, "Iron Man 3" pulled people in droves, and early buzz for the next installment of the "Avengers", slated to be released two years from now, are giving no indication of anything slowing down.

On the other hand, "Iron Man 3" did get some softer reviews than its two predecessors, and "The Wolverine" may not become this summers next steaming box-office turd, but it didn't bring in the "buy your own private island" return that I'm sure its financial backers had hoped for.  Maybe people really are just becoming worn out on this generations iteration of Marvel heroes, or comic-book movies in general.

While I definitely think this current trend of movies will pass, or at least go through some massive change-ups in the future, I think some of the Nostradamus-ing going on right now is forgetting to take the individual movies into consideration, in favor of being the one say that they were the ones who predicted the big crash.  Shane Black, taking over the helm of Iron Man, made a different Iron Man movie than his predicessor Jon Favreau, and some of what he tried just didn't work out -- it wasn't that I was too tired of comic-book movies to enjoy it, it just wasn't as good of a movie.

I think the future of Marvel film universe is going to depend on its ability to keep making quality movies; ones that speak to its current generation of audience.  When the studios stop allowing their films to grow and progress naturally with the times will mark the bursting of the current Marvel bubble we're currently caught in.  The re-booting of the Spiderman franchise, and the new direction the X-men movies have taken with "First Class" and the upcoming "Days of Future Past" are good examples of how to keep things fresh.

And over at DC, allowing Nolan to focus on making good movies that just happen to include the caped crusader was the perfect formula.  I think looking at trends can only tell us so much, and is more useful in telling us where we've been than where we're defiantly going.  As for me, I'm more interested in seeing good movies, in whatever shape they may take.

Cody Hobbs