Avengers:Endgame came out over four years ago, you probably remember early ticket sales are breaking records as the world ran to the theaters to see how the previous summer’s Infinity War cliffhanger concludes.
The build-up was something special, waiting for a beautifully crafted story spanning back over a decade to conclude in a final three hour film that became one of the biggest films of all time.
For myself, and many fans from Generation X, it was the last time we we’re this excited about a movie theater experience of this kind.
The Star Wars saga has worn it self down. The Millennials have Harry Potter and his story has been over for a long time. The Lord of the Rings/Hobbit saga stretched itself to six films and countless other book and video game adaptations have failed. The Amazon show is doing well enough.
The DC Universe never really got back on track despite Aquaman, the first Wonder Woman, and the first Shazam having proven they are capable of putting out a decent product, but it’s not nearly as effective story telling that we’ve seen from Marvel.
I really like this series. When I was a kid, we never thought we’d see these incredible stories on the big screen, but there was eventually diminished returns.
And then there is the home experience and technology. I like watching things at my house on a comfortable chair with my refrigerator a few steps away, and I like watching those things on demand. We’ve watched the movie theater experience become more expensive, while our televisions at home become bigger and more capable. It takes a well crafted story with a hefty special effects budget to pull people out of their homes.
When I was younger the most highly anticipated movie to we stood in line for without a dedicated following was Independence Day. It relied on high end special effects, a young Will Smith, who was exiting his “Fresh Prince” phase and had demonstrated he was box office bank with “Bad Boys”. The plot of “ID4”? An alien invasion and that was about all we knew.
We could see something else drop out of the sky, but Hollywood doesn’t have the patience we’ve seen with the Marvel Universe. There are other non-superhero properties and stories that could reel us in, but will they capture this kind of anticipation? Probably not.
From now on the only time you’ll see Generation X standing in line for a movie is when their standing in that line with their kids and they forgot to order the tickets in advance. We’re just too busy otherwise.
But Endgame was still it for us. And we loved every second.
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