Quote Originally Posted by Anteros View Post
People don't go watch Spiderman for that. They go to watch a guy in a shiny costume fight super villains. In fact, most people hated the "personal life" parts of the Spider Man movies when they started to overshadow the actual super heroism.
I don't. I go to watch a character I find interesting strive to overcome obstacles that matter to them. This is otherwise known in the movie business as having a compelling character interact with a compelling plot.

What you are describing is the logic that currently holds in the executive suites in Hollywood: since the only competitive advantage Hollywood currently holds over, say, HBO is spectacle, then let's ramp up the spectacle to 11 and give the audience wall-to-wall CGI porn. There's just one problem with that: that doesn't work for any audience other than teenage boys.

It also ignores just how valuable creating a reputation for quality storytelling really is. If you look at the studios that most consistently churn out successful movies, the three biggest are Marvel, Disney and Pixar. And every last one of them has a reputation for producing quality stories. The Avengers was just a blockbuster largely because Marvel Studios spent such a huge amount of time laying the ground work for it by telling stories that established their characters like Iron Man, Captain America and Thor, all characters, mind you, that fifteen years ago people would have said were B-listers who would never have a successful movie built around them. Pixar needs no introduction, and it is bar none the most successful studio of the last 20 years. Disney fell off precisely because they got a reputation for cash grabs over creating compelling stories and characters, and they have been restoring their reputation precisely because they've stopped following the formula that got worn to a nubbin by Mulan and they just kept trying to redo with diminishing results.