There's been a lot of talk about "superhero fatigue" in recent months, with that mostly stemming from what proved to be a difficult year for the genre in terms of box office receipts.
It's way too soon to write the genre off, but Warner Bros. Discovery and DC Studios are already in the midst of rebooting the DCEU as the DCU. Marvel Studios, meanwhile, is going back to the drawing board on countless projects in a bid to restore faith in the Multiverse Saga.
The next couple of years will be crucial for both brands but The Dark Knight star Aaron Eckhart has now shared his thoughts on why today's superhero movies need to ground themselves in reality by taking their cues from Christopher Nolan.
"It's not what I would tell them. It's what's on film. It's what Chris did," he tells Screen Rant. "If you take what your question right there and break it up and analyze it, and you say, "The Dark Knight," which is Chris Nolan, "brought [superheroes] back," from where? Where did he bring them back from? He brought it and put it right in reality."
"He put it in truth, in reality and made it concrete and real and tangible. It was in fantasy land. And I haven't seen a lot of those movies lately, but I think it's gone back into fantasy land. Look at Heath's performance. Look at his makeup. His makeup looked like he did it at home, right? And that's what we want."
"We want a superhero that's grounded in reality, and we want villains that are grounded in reality," Eckhart continued. "And Chris did that perfectly. I think it set a benchmark for that, so I would say just get back to truth. Truth is where it's at."
The actor makes some valid points here, but "grounded" superhero movies continue to split opinions (especially when they veer too far from the source material). Then again, it's hard to argue with the success that the likes of Joker and The Batman have found in recent years.
Eckhart played Two-Face in The Dark Knight and has since gone on to appear in movies like Love Happens, Battle: Los Angeles, The Rum Diary, Olympus Has Fallen and its sequel, and Midway.
Can superhero movies be saved with the likes of Deadpool 3 and Superman: Legacy on the horizon? Some will argue they don't need saving after one bad year but it feels like we've reached a breaking point with a genre which clearly needs to evolve.