Superhero TV Shows vs. Superhero Movies

David Corenswet

Today, the new Superman movie was released, directed by James Gunn, and starring David Corenswet as the greatest superhero of them all.

UPDATE: Truth: It's great. Justice: It's been done, to both the character and his fans. The American Way: Trump is gonna hate it, but my Dad, who grew up on the comics and George Reeves in The Adventures of Superman, would have loved it.

Are superhero TV shows are better than superhero movies? I say yes, because they don't have to follow the same rules:

1. You can take 45 minutes to show the origin story, and instead of, "Enough already, we want to see the movie!" that's your pilot episode. You're allowed to do that.

2. You don't have to pack all of the action into 2 hours. You can have the hero -- and the villain -- talking plans over with the people they work with, and instead of sounding like some foreign film from the 1960s that doesn't make sense even when you add subtitles, it's "The West Wing meets the Super Friends," and it works. The Arrowverse proved this, even if Smallville (in my opinion) didn't.

3. You can have 5 different villains over the course of a season, develop their characters as well, and bring them back.

4. If you throw in a guest superhero, it works -- especially if it turns out to be the main hero's love interest, who then becomes part of the main cast.

5. It doesn't get ridiculous if the hero has a new love interest every season, the way it would if he had a new one every movie. (This was one of the problems with the Burton-Schumacher era of Batfilms, 1989 to 1997. And with the James Bond films.)

6. There's no pressure to fill 15 minutes of the first hour and the last half hour of the movie with punches and explosions. You can pace yourself. You can have 3 or 4 episodes in a row with no major battles, and it works. And a 3-minute fight in a 1-hour episode can be just as effective as a 15-minute fight in a 2-hour movie.

7. It doesn't have to be the ultimate battle -- indeed, it can't be. Science fiction writer David Gerrold made the point that, in a standalone movie, this has to be the most important moment of the life of the hero, super- or otherwise. Or else, why would we watch the story?

But if it's a series -- Gerrold used both Sherlock Holmes and James Bond as examples -- then none of these adventures has to be the biggest battle of them all, because you want to keep the fans coming back for the hero. Save the ultimate battle for the series finale.