Steven Spielberg clarifies on his prediction about superhero movies

A little while ago, it was widely reported that Steven Spielberg – one of the biggest directors of all time, as you well know – had predicted the imminent fall of the current superhero genre, and even farther back, no less than the impending implosion for the entire industry. He told Associated Press, ‘We were around when the Western died and there will be a time when the superhero movie goes the way of the Western. It doesn’t mean there won’t be another occasion where the Western comes back and the superhero movie someday returns.’ Naturally, arching statements that Spielberg made about superhero flicks were taken as some kind of prediction of a ticking time-bomb lying in wait under the genre. But at a press conference for his upcoming movie, Bridge of Spies, Spielberg was compelled to clarify these statements.

‘To clarify, I didn’t predict the implosion of the film industry at all… I simply predicted that a number of blockbusters in one summer – those big sort of tentpole superhero movies – there was going to come a time where two or three or four of them in a row didn’t work. That’s really all I said. I didn’t say the film industry was ever going to end because of it. I was simply saying that I felt that that particular genre doesn’t have the legs or longevity of the Western, which was around since the beginning of film and only started to wither and shrivel in the sixties.’

If we’re being entirely honest, this is essentially a reiteration of what Spielberg said before; superhero flicks are thriving right now, but they will one day fade away, just like any other genre. We do like to pick apart every comment that a director or actor says; Spielberg’s clarification here is more telling of the way simple, clear statements can be taken entirely in one direction, and how one version of the truth becomes canon.