When The Dark Knight was released in 2008, the hope was that major award ceremonies like the Oscars would start recognising blockbuster movies. The promise of expanding the "Best Picture" category to include them ultimately came to naught, while the notion of a "Popular" film category was widely ridiculed and led to the Academy scrapping the idea.
As a result, superhero movies have been largely ignored, though the R-Rated Joker did get some attention earlier this year, while Black Panther received a "Best Picture" nod in 2019.
Despite that, it still feels like the genre is widely dismissed, and when Chris Evans talked to Deadline about his Apple TV+ series Defending Jacob, he made a case for why Marvel Studios movies like Avengers: Endgame deserve to be taken more seriously when award season rolls around.
"There is enormous thought and consideration that goes into these story arcs," the actor explained. "If you take the Marvel moniker off those movies, and characters that aren’t identifiable from comic books these movies would be lauded in that way. I’m not saying every one’s a home run. But they really turn out some really impressive movies."
It's a fair point, and the fact that a movie like Avengers: Endgame can come out, receive widespread critical acclaim, become the highest-grossing release of all-time, but not be recognised at the Oscars, is crazy. Whether things will change moving forward remains to be seen.
What do you guys think?