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As we know, movie genres come and go. We had an era of sci-fi B-movies, of Westerns, 80s action flicks, and more recently, superhero movies. The problem with Hollywood is that they tend to get on a bandwagon and then bleed it dry.
The expression ‘superhero fatigue’ is a real thing. Back in 2008, Ironman came out and just hit the audience in the right way, and launched the MCU.
Over 12 years, we had 20+ movies, different directors, different stories, but all building toward Endgame. Say what you will about the superhero era, but Ironman to Endgame was an impressive feat, I doubt we’ll see anything like it again for a long time.
Yes, we had had superhero movies before, but they were hit and miss, and nothing was as big as Ironman to Endgame. Endgame made $2.8 billion at the box office.
That means that a lot of people went to see it. Superheroes were popular, and Hollywood was pleased.
All Was Good, Until…
However, after Endgame, it all started to wear thin. The MCU movies since 2019 have been mixed at best. There have been a few hits, but most of them have been very lacklustre.
Some superhero movies have done well at the box office, but nowhere near the numbers of Endgame.
This reduced box office performance was mainly due to two factors.
Firstly, Hollywood decided the answer to everything was to ‘put a chick in it and made her lame and gay’. Secondly, that ‘superhero fatigue’ became very real.
We had more than a decade of the superhero era, and people were getting a little tired of Hollywood trying to bleed the last drop out of anyone in a cape. #NoCapesDarling
Gunning It
James Gunn took over at DC, tasked with trying to recreate what Kevin Feige had done with the MCU.
I feel for Gunn, as he was facing a massive uphill struggle. He had previously made some great MCU movies, but taking on the DCU seemed like just bad timing.
The previous DCEU had tried to do its own big team up with Justice League. The issue was that they hadn’t set up the characters all that well, with just a couple of movies leading into it.
On top of that, they had studio interference and production problems from start to finish. Justice League came out, sank, and then Gunn came in and wanted to ‘reboot’ it all.
Last year, his Superman came out to mixed reviews and what felt, to some, muted box office.
Is the era of superheroes coming to an end?
Money, Money, Money
Horror has been a staple of cinema since the very early days of the silver screen. One of the greatest horror movies of all time is the original Nosferatu. It’s an ‘era’ of movies that’s never gone away.
Movies like Halloween, Evil Dead, and The Blair Witch Project broke the mould. They were made on a shoestring budget, but ended up making a lot of money at the box office.
Halloween cost: $325,000 – Takings: $47 million
Evil Dead cost: $350,000 – Takings: $2.4 million
The Blair Witch Project cost: £60,000 – Takings: $248 million
Other movies have been profitable, but those really stand out.
So far, in 2026, we may have been seeing the same thing happening all over again.
Three movies have been made on a relatively cheap budget, but have gone on to do rather well at the box office. Here are some domestic figures.
Iron Lung cost: $3 million – Takings: $50 million
Obsession cost: $750,000 – Takings $160 million
Backrooms cost: $10 million – Takings $130 million
As we know, movies have to make roughly 3 times their costs to break even. I’m not going into the ins and outs of it all, but that’s the rough idea.
That means that Iron Lung, Obsession, and Backrooms are very profitable.
In fact, they have been increasing their weekly box office takings while movies like The Mandalorian & Grogu have seen drops of around 70%.
We are living in a time where a Star Wars movie is going to lose money while being eclipsed by what you could call some ‘indie movies from YouTube’.
Exploitation
As we know, Robert Downey Jr is getting around $50 million for the next two Avengers movies. That’s just one man!
The overall costs aren’t confirmed, but people are talking in the ballpark of $400 million just to make each movies! Let alone the advertising and other costs.
Let’s compare that to one of the mid-range indie horrors, Iron Lung. It cost $3 million to make, but has made (so far) $50 million. If the new Avengers movie made the same level of profit against the budget, each would hypothetically earn $6,640,000,000.
Yes, six billion, six hundred and forty million. We know that is not going to happen, it’s just not going to make that much money. It will be profitable, but just not that profitable.
If you compared it to Obsession (lol) and used that as a metric, a new Avengers movie would take $9,200,000,000, that’s nine billion.
Again, good luck to the Russo brothers.
So what looks inevitable is that Hollywood is going to start a whole new era of cinema – cheap movies from YouTube – to try and make mega bucks.
And, as we already know, it’s just not going to work.
Do You Have An Idea?
I feel sorry for some YouTube content creators at the moment. They are all naive to the ways of Hollywood.
What’s going to happen now, in this new era, will be hungry, desperate Hollywood execs frantically clicking through YouTube, trying to find the next Obsession.
Who’s had millions of views that we can leverage?
If they can find a wet-behind-the-ears director, sitting on a cheap and easy story to adapt, then pay the actors zero money (never, ever give them a percentage of the sales), they will think they can make millions.
This will almost inevitable centre on horror.
Since I’ve been posting on the Last Movie Outpost, I’ve lost count of the number of indie horrors I’ve had to watch. It’s likely over 100.
Out of all of them, only a handful have been memorable.
I loved Obsession and Backrooms. I genuinely thought that both movies were excellent.
However, I’m now worried that, for one Obsession, there will be 100 rip-offs, knock-offs, or cheap imitations. All of them trying to replicate the same success, which just isn’t going to happen.
This new era of indie-style horror will be Hollywood looking for lightning in a bottle.
People are bored with superhero movies, Star Wars movies, and possibly, just big-budget movies in general. The main issue being they are being made with just money in mind, not really passion projects, made from the heart.
Some Of Them Do Work
For example, Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein was a passion project, and it was one of the better movies recently. But it’s still another big studio movie, made with a huge budget, and had Netflix backing it all the way.
It’s not indie, not like Obsession. And A24 gave Parsons $10 million to make Backrooms, but they let him make the movie he wanted, not something that just ticked the boxes to appeal to the ’modern audience’.
A new era of indie horror is coming. People are going to be exploited by Hollywood, now and then we will see another occasional success story, but mostly, it’s going to be slop adding to slop, until they find a new genre to leech from.
Am I wrong? Or is this just a storm in a teacup and it will pass?
Additional Notes
I wrote this on Thursday through Friday morning. I got home from work on Friday, and was browsing OnlyFa… umm, Twitter, and saw this:
The new BLAIR WITCH PROJECT is planning to release in 2027, we’ve learned.
Dylan Clark, who was discovered on YouTube after his horror short Portrait of God went viral, is directing.
Portrait of God is getting a feature film expansion, with Jordan Peele & Sam Raimi producing. pic.twitter.com/QnVWfcZWkF
— Bloody Disgusting (@BDisgusting) June 5, 2026
Firstly, a new Blair Witch is the stupidest idea one could imagine.
Then I read:
Dylan Clark, who was discovered on YouTube after his horror short Portrait of God went viral, is directing.
No way, a YouTuber, known for making a short horror movie, has been called in to direct a horror movie!
This was exactly what I thought was going to happen. I haven’t seen Portrait of God, but I’ll give it a go. YouTube do adverts, and you can’t really watch a horror movie with adverts unless your name is William Castle.
I want to say that I hope Hollywood is going to treat Clark with the respect and dignity he deserves as a young YouTuber and movie maker.
Then I remember they’ve got him to direct a reboot of The Blair Witch, which is a terrible idea. When the movie bombs, I wonder who will get the blame?
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