The Batman - 2022

[Psyren]

Jaws is low stakes as opposed to space farmer getting magic pebbles to genocide the galaxy, is what I mean. Not every story needs a Death Star or super hotshot pilot (looking at you, entire Sequel Trilogy). "Low stakes" doesn't mean "practically irrelevant". It just means that the world doesn't need to be in danger because the evil secret organization took over the good secret organization and will blow up half the country because like 90% of the heroes are doing macramè or something.

I think we're talking past each other a bit; I certainly don't want every movie villain to be Thanos or Palpatine either, and furthermore I think "smaller stakes than Thanos" is readily achievable for a blockbuster.

You could make an awesome story about Superman coming to grips with the fact that despite being effectively a god, he can't save all the people all the time, and he even has to find out where to draw the line and how to emotionally deal with that. That maybe sometimes, Clark Kent can help people in ways that Superman can't. You could have an absolutely fantastic story based on that, because not every superhero movie needs a bad guy to just be punched in just the right way. You can hit dramatic and emotional notes on superheroes just like you can with regular people. Hell, a superhero grappling with dealing with the real world out of their element is dang near what First Blood was, and it was near universally critically acclaimed, dominated the box office in the third quarter, and took until just thee years ago to be toppled in ticket sales in China, for example. It not only works, it works globally. But punching someone in a silly costume sells right now, and that's all that's really important, apparently.

I... honestly don't know how much I can safely say about First Blood and its surrounding context here, but while it was certainly a character study, it was also very much about specific events and themes that I don't know would translate to a Superman story very well. (Not that a superhero property couldn't incorporate them at all - while it didn't do nearly as good a job as First Blood did, the better parts of Falcon and the Winter Soldier did visit some of these themes.)

Yeah for Superman, you don't make some big superthreat that is going to kill the world RIGHT NOW. for him that is no question, he'd just save the world then go be normal afterwards.

for Superman you want Lex Luthor to go "okay Supermans great, but behold! I've invented this super-robot model that replicates supermans feats which I can legally produce and sell to more widely protect the world!" because then Superman has to furrow his brow and go "I know Lex Luthor is always up to no good but this is completely legal and I can't just go off the handle to attack him when these robots could actually protect people, but those robots could also be used to fight wars which would cause more suffering, so its not as if the robots are a 100% good thing for the world even if Lex has turned a new leaf for real and he didn't say what these things are powered by to make sure they can achieve great power, how can I sure if they are ethically....." that makes it so even if he is presented with an opportunity to just hang up the cape because Lex supposedly got it, its Lex Luthor so its like how can he be sure?

and then you can play the suspicion from drama where everyone else goes "maybe he has finally turned over a leaf" and Superman insists on figuring out whether Lex actually has and when Superman turns out to be right and Lex is still evil, he just sighs and goes "I was hoping I was wrong and that you had redeemed yourself" instead of anything triumphant.

Yeah okay, I could see that - but no matter how slow a boil you put it on, do you see how Lex having an army of superbots still ends with a pretty big stakes third act? Maybe not global, but still. Not to mention that Far From Home among others followed fairly similar beats.