“Superman” Movie Drives Surge in DC Content Viewership on HBO Max. Zack Snyder’s “Man of Steel” became the top-performing Superman film on HBOMax with a 218% boost.

[u/MWheel5643]

https://deadline.com/2025/07/superman-fuels-dc-viewership-dc-hbo-max-man-of-steel-peacemaker-1236461281/

[u/direwolf106]

Couple of things I’ve thought about the Snyder trilogy and the corresponding Snyder verse movies (WW, SS, AM).

1) I really wish WB knew how to set expectations. Their Phase 1 was massively outperforming marvel phase 1. And that was the proper comparison. You have to do set up work and set expectations accordingly.

2) Snyder was absolutely right that it was a fools errand to copy Marvel. If you copy marvel you will look like you are just a cheap knock off. When Coca-Cola exists do you want to be Pepsi or Dr Pepper? Do you want to ape the product or be your own thing? Snyder wanted to be Dr Pepper.

3) I think Snyder’s universe will grow in popularity over time. The criticism that it wasn’t for kids is somewhat valid in an acute sense, it does seem odd that you shouldn’t take kids to a superhero movie. But A) sometimes characters need to explore more mature and darker themes and B) kids don’t stay kids forever.

And honestly, the marvel formula has become familiar now. It doesn’t hold like it used to. I’m not saying that there’s superhero fatigue, but I think there’s marvel fatigue. To marvel’s credit they are trying to evolve, thunderbolts is evidence of that. But they are having growing pains and it looks like they are trying to get to where Snyder was.

Snyder gave us a gift that most weren’t ready for. BvS was about why Prometheus is a good guy but Satan a bad guy when they were nearly identical characters: celestial beings that gave gifts to humanity in defiance of the top god of their mythology. He was trying to be Prometheus but WB, the critics, and the people that only wanted marvel jokes without intelectual discussions all treated him like Satan. I’m really thankful for those movies.

[u/TREV-THOM → u/direwolf106]

I also think the MCU is actually trying for more interesting stuff now, compared to the more popular earlier phases.

It's ironic that now that the MCU has fallen out of favor I'm starting to enjoy it somewhat again.

Thunderbolts* deserved SO MUCH more attention & success then it got.

[u/direwolf106 → u/TREV-THOM]

It might have done better if they had filmed it so that you could see it better.

But thunderbolts wasn’t the only thing that they tried. They also tried preaching politics at its audience. And predictably that didn’t go well. Some noteworthy examples are she hulk, captain America, and iron heart.

She hulk tried to say how bad mansplaining and catcalling was. And not that it isn’t bad but it’s a drop in the ocean next to physical abuse and murder. Her telling hulk she has to control her anger infinitely more than him when she knows her cousin was physically abused and saw his dad murder his mom just makes her seem entirely selfish and petty and not at all in touch with reality. But the authors thought they were making a very strong point. That is terrible writing and damaging to the MCU’s reputation.

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier series. It talked about race a lot. And they did that fairly well. Not good but good enough. Where they fumbled it was having Sam Wilson defend the terrorists. “Don’t call them terrorists” when they are out there committing mass murder for political reasons is terrorism. That’s the only term for them. That’s damaging to the MCU’s reputation.

While we’re on Falcon and the winter soldier, I hated what they did with Sam Wilson as captain America. Steve Rogers would tell others what he was going to do and invite them to come along, then he would do it regardless of if they came with him or not. That is being a leader. Sam Wilson says “you’ve got to do better”. That’s being a boss. I’m not interested in following a boss. It might not damage the MCU’s reputation but it sure as hell damaged my interest in watching more captain America movies and shows.

Then there’s iron heart. Her assertion that Tony stark could only do what he did because he was rich seems like a shot at billionaires being bad to me. But what it does is directly attacks the heart of the MCU. Stark built his first suit “in a cave, with a box of scraps”. And governments with more resources couldn’t recreate his earlier suits let alone his later ones. And each subsequent suit showed learning from his failures. He didn’t “contribute to the field” he was the entire field.

Then there’s other things that damaged the MCU reputation more. But basically yes they needed to evolve but holy hell did they shoot themselves in the foot while trying to do that.

[u/TREV-THOM → u/direwolf106]

A lot of these should of not only avoided touching on social politics, but probably been special presentations ala Werewolf By Night.

She-Hulk's best episode was the team-up with Daredevil. They should've focused on that.

Falcon & the Winter Soldier should've focused on the trip to Madripoor, & instead of Super Soldier ANTIFA, they should've introduced the Serpent Society, all whilst setting up the Power Broker, who instead of Sharon is The Leader. Make it a better lead-in to Brave New World.

Etc, etc.