This is how it all began....

[Samuron]

X-men.

Donner's Superman came out in an age where every studio was looking for blockbuster, and Star Wars had thrown special effects fantasy/scifi into the mainstream. Superman was an obvious source. Similar comments for Batman; both of them were American folklore.

X-Men was the first time that generally unknown comic book heroes were treated as serious characters, and their source material reasonably respected. If Singer had stayed with it, they might have grown into an "MCU" in their own right.

 

[DACrowe]

What, would people say is the most IMPORTANT comic book film release, not your best, favoutite, most valued, CBM, but the most important due to what it may have meant for the genre long term, its defining release & effect on studio development, what one film meant for comic book films in general ?

I would say it's 1978's, Superman The Movie. Without that one film, all of what has grown since, could not be released. Donner's film showed a) how to take a source seriously and place it on film with love & passion for the character and b) how the genre should be shown it could be projected as a film in its' own right, not just as a throwaway film, that comic book films could be taken as a medium alongside drama, action, romance, given it contained all these elements, prior to Superman, all we'd had were serials or 1966 Batman, which was so tongue in cheek.

For me, it's still the bench mark, my love for the film & character are lifelong but without it, Marvel, DC /WB would not have their expanded universes, the X-Men revolution would not have happened and certainly we'd have no clamour from the studios across the board to have a CBM released each summer as a requisite of their output each year.

I don't think it is just one, but overall I'd say the ones that shifted the paradigm are:

-Superman: The Movie
-Batman (1989)
-Spider-Man (2002)
-Batman Begins (reboots)
-The Avengers (shared universes)

There could be a second category about the most influential, and on this lower tier (although it has my favorite CBM):

-X-Men (2000)
-The Dark Knight
-Iron Man (2008)
-Deadpool

 

[FunkMiller]

Superman 78 for beginning it all. TDK for bringing whole new respect and influence. Avengers for bringing in the shared universe.

Perfection Fassbender gif.

 

[OutOfBoose]

I think it's too early to say how influential Deadpool is. If there will be more R-rated BO successes down the road - sure.

But I personally agree with STM->TDK->TA. Paradigm-shifting stuff.

 

[marvelrobbins]

i say most important comic book films are

superman and batman for inventing moden day comic book films

X-men for reviving genre

spider-man for exploding it.

Batman Begins for starting reboot craze

avengers for shared universe

deadpool for r rated films.

 

[Brother Jack]

Other than Superman, Batman Begins is the most influential. It pretty much invented the idea of the gritty reboot and you can see its DNA in every franchise that has ever attempted to do a "grounded reimagining".

 

[Iron_Stark]

Iron Man and the Incredible Hulk in 2008 and the concept of a shared universe.

Everyone else is trying to copy and play catch up with disastrous results.

 

[Johnny-Oh]

Superman: The Movie for being the first.

X-Men for bringing back the superhero genre and proving the genre can be taken seriously.

Spider-Man(2002) for basically creating the modern template on how to make a superhero movie(the MCU is heavily influenced by this film).

The Dark Knight for starting the "dark and gritty" trend.

The Avengers for changing the film industry by making the "shared universe" concept extremely successful.

I think those are the most obvious choices, their importance is undeniable. I disagree with people mentioning Iron Man because the movie itself didn't do anything influential or unique, it was just the first in the cinematic universe. Same with Batman Begins, it wasn't even the first reboot and remakes were already popular so it didn't influence the film landscape in any discernible way.

Off the more recent films I think GOTG and Deadpool are the most notorious and already have impact in the genre.

 

[Iceman]

If we were to put all these CBMs on a Graph, these would be when it would spike:

Superman in 1978.
Batman in 1989
Blade in 1998
X-Men in 2000
Spider-Man in 2001
TDK and Iron Man in 2008
Avengers in 2012

While Blade is kinda the outlier, I think it gave a small resurgence before X-men and Spider-Man.

This is the exact list I would have written. Deadpool and Guardians and Daredevil on Netflix have also contributed in a different way.

 

[Rorschach2012]

Superman The Movie (1978)
Batman (1989)
Blade (1998)
X-Men (2000)
Spider-Man (2002)
Iron Man (2008)
The Dark Knight (2008)
The Avengers (2012)
Guardians of the Galaxy (2015)
Deadpool (2016)

All game changers

 

[B]

• Superman: The Movie (1978) - For being the 1st big budget CBM, had it been poorly received or a financial disaster it would have probably set every film on this list back 10+ years.
  
  
• Batman (1989) - As with STM, helped launch the genre, proved darker, grittier tones could work as well. Film also very important to Batman character, gave him credibility back after Adam West's Batman
  
  
• Blade (1998)/X-Men (2000) - Both for helping save the genre after Batman & Robin nearly killed it.
  
  
• Spiderman (2002) - The movie that really exploded the genre & brought it into the 21st century.
  
  
• The Dark Knight (2008) - 1st Billion Dollar superhero movie & one that had set a superhero in a more realistic setting than those in the previous 10 years hadn't, by doing so it started a newer trend of CBM.
  
  
• The Avengers (2012) - Even though we knew all the previous MCU films were connected as part of a larger universe, The Avengers was really the one that confirmed & launched MCU proving shared universes could work... when done correctly.
  
  
• Deadpool (2016) - Game changer, proving that age restricted CBM's with excessive gore, swearing & sexual content could be well received by audiences & financially successful. Potentially opening the doors to more 'edgey' characters.

 

[Breogan]

Aye, there is a reason why the Wayne's take it in on that fateful evening....

Jerry Siegel: "I loved The Mark of Zorro, and I'm sure that had some influence on me." ..."When writing the script, I had Douglass Fairbanks very much in mind in the athletic stunts that he did too, so the influence of Douglass Fairbanks was not only in the art but in the visual action."

Joe Shuster - "I was a great fan of Douglas Fairbanks, and so was Jerry and I tried to use his stance, the way Douglass Fairbanks looked, ...with his hands on his hips, in Robin Hood and Mark of Zorro, in all those he had those marvelous attitude..." " [His costume] was inspired by the costume pictures that Fairbanks did: they greatly influenced us. He did The Mark of Zorro, and Robin Hood, and a marvelous one called The Black Pirate - Fairbanks would swing on ropes very much like Superman flying... the feeling of action as he was flying or jumping or leaping - a flowing cape would give it movement.

Bill Finger - "Batman was a combination of Douglas Fairbanks [who played Zorro] and Sherlock Holmes."

Bob Kane -"Zorros use of a mask to conceal his identity as Don Diego gave me the idea of giving Batman a secret identityBruce Wayne would be a man of means who put on a façade of being effete. Zorro rode a black horse called Tornado and would enter a cave and exit from a grandfather clock in the living room. The bat-cave was inspired by this cave in Zorro. I didn't want Batman to be a Superhero with superpowersSo I made Batman an ordinary human being; he is just an athlete who has the physical prowess of Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., who was my all-time favorite hero in the movies.

Fairbanks Zorro and his other roles definitely helped inspire the original era, and as you indicate is now often referenced in story as homage.

I would say it's 1978's, Superman The Movie. Without that one film, all of what has grown since, could not be released.

Superman in 1978.

Superman The Movie (1978)

Superman: The Movie (1978) - For being the 1st big budget CBM, had it been poorly received or a financial disaster it would have probably set every film on this list back 10+ years.

Also telling, how many rightfully referencing (1978)Superman: The Movie, which began a new era,
Ironically a Zorro movie was there as inspiration, yet again...

Ilya Salkind- ''I was walking down a street in Paris in 1974 and I saw a poster advertising Zorro,....''The next day out of the blue I said to my father, 'Let's do Superman.'

Superman | The Amazing Story of Superman | Documentary | Warner Bros. Entertainment

"The clearest memory I have - this is late [19]74 - is I'm walking [in] Paris and seeing a billboard of Zorro - that film was a French film [of Zorro] and featuring a local French star - I just digested that," Salkind said. So with a costumed hero in mind and ready to produce another film with a big American audience, Salkind suggested "Hey, let's do Superman."

I was in Paris, and I saw a billboard for a Zorro movie, he explains, on the phone from his production house in Los Angeles. I immediately knew what I wanted to do.

Superman on Film-

 

[TheJL]

Dick Tracy's visual effects that have been seen in Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor: Ragnarok.

 

[JeetKuneDo]

If we were to put all these CBMs on a Graph, these would be when it would spike:

Superman in 1978.
Batman in 1989
Blade in 1998
X-Men in 2000
Spider-Man in 2001
TDK and Iron Man in 2008
Avengers in 2012

While Blade is kinda the outlier, I think it gave a small resurgence before X-men and Spider-Man.

That's a great way to put it.

The highest "spike" to me is Superman 78. It's like the Elvis spike on a rock music graph. Being the genesis is hard to top.

Batman 89 was a big hit, but it didn't seem to kickstart anything in the 90s. Other studios weren't suddenly trying to copy it.

Spider-Man was also a big hit and seemed to have gotten the attention of the industry more than Batman did.

The weird one is Iron Man and TDK in 2008. TDK was the bigger hit, but since then it's pretty obvious IM has had the bigger impact by a mile. The CBM industry has been trying to copy it ever since.....and it even influenced other genres like horror with the Dark Universe and Conjuring, animation with Lego, 21 Jump Street/Men in Black, and Transformers. Even Star Wars is getting in on the act.

A movie like Logan might be compared more to TDK but that's a rarity. Logan was immediately drowned out by 5 more CBMs that followed the MCU template.

So I would say the two biggest peaks are Superman 78 and IM 2008.

 

[Kevin Roegele]

Batman & Robin was hugely important. It not only showed the limits of how far a comicbook movie should go in one specific direction (silly and shallow), it also awakened the wrath of fanboys online (Harry Knowles in particular) and made Hollywood realise they need the fans onboard. Warner Bros learnt their lesson and the next Batman movie was Batman Begins.

Batman v Superman is just like Batman & Robin, but in the other direction: it showed how grim and serious was too grim and serious for a comicbook movie. Again, Warner learnt from this and tried to make the follow-up, Justice League, more upbeat and comedic.

Batman & Robin and Batman V Superman represent the two extremes of comicbook movies, and filmakers know to keep within those boundaries.

 

[Kevin Roegele]

• Blade (1998)/X-Men (2000) - Both for helping save the genre after Batman & Robin nearly killed it.

I agree with all your points except this one.

Blade is based on a comic, but it's not a superhero movie. It's an action/horror movie. It's martial arts and vampires.

It's really the combination of X-Men, which was a hit, and Spider-Man, which was a huge hit, that resuscitated the superhero genre.

 

[Breogan]

Full Circle

Where it all began...