I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why certain massive cinematic universes seem to hit a brick wall after a few years. You know the pattern. A franchise starts out with this incredible, gritty, or deeply personal energy that makes you care about the characters on a fundamental level. But then, almost inevitably, it feels like the scale starts expanding at an unsustainable rate. Suddenly, we aren't watching a story about a person anymore; we're watching a story about a cosmic concept, or a multiverse, or some high-concept gimmick that makes the stakes feel massive but the emotional connection feel hollow.
I remember being so invested in certain hero journeys a decade ago because the stakes were simple: will they make it home? Will they keep their secret? Will they manage to balance their messy personal lives with their responsibilities? It felt tactile. You could feel the weight of their decisions. But lately, it feels like every major property is terrified of being "small." There is this pervasive fear in modern filmmaking that if you aren't jumping between dimensions or fighting gods, you aren't "epic" enough to justify a massive budget.
The problem is that when you chase that "epicness" by leaning into spectacle and increasingly convoluted lore, you almost always sacrifice the character study. I find myself craving that return to basics. I want to see characters struggle with the mundane, the quiet, and the heartbreakingly human stuff. I want to see the fallout of a choice in a way that doesn't require a CGI explosion to communicate. There's a specific kind of magic that happens when a director decides to pull the camera back from the cosmic chaos and just focus on the eyes of the actor, or the silence in a room after a tragedy.
I feel like we're reaching a saturation point. We’ve been fed so much "multiversal" nonsense and "event-based" storytelling that the novelty has completely worn off. It’s become white noise. When everything is a "world-ending threat," then nothing actually feels threatening. It just feels like more noise. I’ve been gravitating more toward smaller, character-driven indie films or even older blockbusters that weren't afraid to be quiet. There is a profound strength in a "grounded" approach—not necessarily meaning "no superpowers," but meaning "real emotional consequences."
I actually had a moment recently watching an old film where the entire conflict could have been resolved with a simple conversation, but the tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife. That’s what’s missing for me in the current landscape. I’m tired of the "everything is connected to everything else" trope. I want stories that are allowed to stand on their own, driven by the internal logic of a person’s heart rather than the external logic of a complex, confusing map of different realities.
It makes me wonder if the industry is actually heading toward a pivot. Are we going to see a massive correction where the big studios realize that "more" isn't "better"? Or are we stuck in this loop where every successful property is forced to expand until it eventually collapses under its own weight?
Do you think we're actually experiencing "spectacle fatigue," or are we just getting better at spotting when a story has lost its soul in favor of scale?
I remember being so invested in certain hero journeys a decade ago because the stakes were simple: will they make it home? Will they keep their secret? Will they manage to balance their messy personal lives with their responsibilities? It felt tactile. You could feel the weight of their decisions. But lately, it feels like every major property is terrified of being "small." There is this pervasive fear in modern filmmaking that if you aren't jumping between dimensions or fighting gods, you aren't "epic" enough to justify a massive budget.
The problem is that when you chase that "epicness" by leaning into spectacle and increasingly convoluted lore, you almost always sacrifice the character study. I find myself craving that return to basics. I want to see characters struggle with the mundane, the quiet, and the heartbreakingly human stuff. I want to see the fallout of a choice in a way that doesn't require a CGI explosion to communicate. There's a specific kind of magic that happens when a director decides to pull the camera back from the cosmic chaos and just focus on the eyes of the actor, or the silence in a room after a tragedy.
I feel like we're reaching a saturation point. We’ve been fed so much "multiversal" nonsense and "event-based" storytelling that the novelty has completely worn off. It’s become white noise. When everything is a "world-ending threat," then nothing actually feels threatening. It just feels like more noise. I’ve been gravitating more toward smaller, character-driven indie films or even older blockbusters that weren't afraid to be quiet. There is a profound strength in a "grounded" approach—not necessarily meaning "no superpowers," but meaning "real emotional consequences."
I actually had a moment recently watching an old film where the entire conflict could have been resolved with a simple conversation, but the tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife. That’s what’s missing for me in the current landscape. I’m tired of the "everything is connected to everything else" trope. I want stories that are allowed to stand on their own, driven by the internal logic of a person’s heart rather than the external logic of a complex, confusing map of different realities.
It makes me wonder if the industry is actually heading toward a pivot. Are we going to see a massive correction where the big studios realize that "more" isn't "better"? Or are we stuck in this loop where every successful property is forced to expand until it eventually collapses under its own weight?
Do you think we're actually experiencing "spectacle fatigue," or are we just getting better at spotting when a story has lost its soul in favor of scale?