To say that the superhero movie is big business at the box office would be a little bit of an understatement as the likes of The Dark Knight, Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk all topped the charts last summer.
And with Iron Man and, most probably Batman, to get a sequel and the release of Wolverine this summer the presence of the this genre of movie in our cinemas is going to linger for quite a while yet.
However the face of the superhero or comic book adaptation movie is changing and all this began last summer with the release of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight.
Widely regarded as the best superhero movie of all time this film was given a surprisingly lax rating of 12A but a children’s movie this is not.
Nolan dissects the notion of good and evil and questions what makes a hero and villain in a very complex and dark movie that is aimed, perhaps for the very first time in this genre of movie, at adults going far beyond what we have come to expect of the comic book film.
The film was a dark thriller that was driven by the manic performance of Heath Ledger gone was Nicholson’s comic interpretation of the character replaced instead by a real menace and madness, the definitive interpretation of Batman's menace.
And at long last a movie had been made with an adult audience in mind. For years we have been watching the likes of Spiderman, X-Men and Superman, and while there is nothing wrong with these movies they just lacked that little bit of punch.
And this trend looks set to continue with the adaptation of the ultimate graphic novel... Watchmen, which is turning into the first must see blockbuster movie of 2009.
The comic book series, which only spanned twelve issues, was created by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons and John Higgins between 1986 and 1987.
The movie brings together an ensemble cast of Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Patrick Wilson as the caped crusaders who try to bring law and order to the land.
The film is unafraid of grappling with sex and violence and, much like The Dark Knight, is a gritty adaptation rather than a glossy big budget picture.
Guillermo Del Toro also tried his hand at changing the look of this genre of film as Hellboy II: The Golden Army resembled something more out of Pan's Labyrinth than the usual superhero movie and he managed to present one of last year's most original movies.
But the whole darker side to the superhero looks set to continue as Jon Faverau, director of Iron Man, hinted that he would like to look at Tony Stark's alcohol addiction that is present in the comics.
And how Christopher Nolan is going to top The Dark Knight we are going to have to wait and see.
Watchmen is released 6th March
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
Tagged in Watchmen