Ironheart and Superman YouTube Ratios Say Much About “Superhero Fatigue”
Not only is Marvel scurrying to fix their next theatrical release, but their upcoming Disney+ series, Ironheart, is not looking like it’ll be a hit. The show that focuses on Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne), the teenage genius who is totally not replacing Iron Man as the MCU’s new armored mech hero (despite taking his suit design and reenacting famous scenes from the Iron Man movies), as she seeks to create something “iconic” while getting mixed up with a mystical criminal, released its first trailer on Wednesday. On that same day, Warner Bros. released a trailer for Superman, the first film in the DCU from James Gunn, and you won’t be surprised which one overshadowed the other. Superman got lots of attention, with fans debating what they thought of David Corenswet as the title character, the looks at the many other DC heroes appearing in the movie, and the new versions of alliterative franchise stalwarts Lois Lane and Lex Luthor. Ironheart mostly felt like an afterthought, making one wonder why Marvel chose to debut the ad campaign for the show on the same day as that of one of the most beloved superheroes of all time.
That sentiment was born out in the YouTube like-to-dislike ratio for each trailer. Ironheart’s is disastrous, with a current ratio of 186,000 likes to 344,000 dislikes; that’s creeping up on double the amount of dislikes as likes, indicating what any idiot could have told Marvel when this show was announced: nobody cares about Ironheart.
Superman, on the other hand, is a much different story. The trailer for the new movie from the Distinguished Competition has a ratio of 471,000 likes to 16,000 dislikes.
Also of note is the view count for each trailer. Ironheart has 7,231,217 views as of this writing, while Superman has 21,318,507, almost three times as many. The interest is nowhere near comparable, and while Ironheart is a TV show on a not particularly successful streaming service, while Superman is a movie going into wide release, that’s still a massive disparity. A more interesting comparison is Superman and The Fantastic Four: First Steps, the trailer for which has 19 million views four weeks after going live, fewer than Superman in just two days. This is the difference between superhero fatigue and Marvel apathy; fewer people care what Marvel is doing than ever, but they’re happy to check out the trailer for Superman’s next big screen adventure. Perhaps people aren’t done with superhero cinema in general; they’re just tired of Marvel’s awful output, and they’re excited that an alternative is on the way. This bodes well for the DCU, especially if Marvel can’t right their sinking ship with Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars. Current box office tracking has Superman making $175 million domestically in its opening weekend, and if that holds, the only thing that will sink it is if people don’t like it. But as long as James Gunn delivers, the DCU will be off to a great start.
As for Ironheart, I suspect that Marvel released the trailer on the same day as Superman’s because they wanted to avoid the show being the center of attention. The long delay, the touting of Robert Downey Jr.’s perceived approval, and the promotional video assuring exasperated fans that Riri Williams is not an Iron Man replacement all suggest that Marvel knows nobody is particularly keen on Ironheart. The show is also coming on the heels of Daredevil: Born Again, a spectacular failure that almost nobody watched even before they found out it sucked. Why not dump the Ironheart trailer on the same day everyone will be talking about Superman so it gets lost in all the commotion? Marvel doesn’t need any more negative attention, and while a certain amount is unavoidable, I think they’re going to do all they can to let Ironheart fly under the radar. The first three episodes will air on the premiere date, like Disney+ does with seemingly all its shows, but since Ironheart has just six episodes, that’s half of the series on the first night. I’m a bit surprised they didn’t pull an Echo and release the whole thing in one shot. They’re also not doing much to get people excited, like trying to tie it into Doomsday like they did with Thunderbolts* (Dominique Thorne’s name was not on one of the chairs when they announced most of the cast for that film) or making a big deal of finally bringing Mephisto into the MCU (if that’s who Sacha Baron Cohen is actually playing, but I can see them disappointing fans yet again on that score). I think Marvel is throwing in the towel on this one.
Let us know what you think of the Ironheart and Superman YouTube rations in the comments!
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