Who Killed the Genre?

Sometimes a movie comes along that changes the landscape of cinema for a long time, perhaps even forever. Today we're talking about Genre Killers.

Basically there are three types of genre killers and first up is the Bomb. A bomb is a movie that performs so abysmally at the box office that no studio wants to risk making another for at least ten years, maybe even longer. Some notable examples include:

Cleopatra (1963) and The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) killed the Sword and Sandal epics and it wasn't until Gladiator (2000) that the genre was revived. It did survive on television with I Claudius and Masada but for 36 years, the genre was effectively dead.

Similarly, The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) hammered down the coffin lid on the religious epic. It had an all star cast (eight Oscar winners, ten nominees) and was horribly expensive but it still failed at the box office. This wasn't helped by the fact that some studios pushed the envelope on what was allowed to be shown in the vein of sex and violence with their religious epics, since they had the excuse of showing the vagaries of sin.

Doctor Dolittle, Camelot, and Hello, Dolly! (1967-1969) wrecked the big Hollywood musicals and the genre stayed dead until Cabaret (1972) managed to revive it a little. On top of that, Cabaret was called a musical for people who hated musicals. Paints a picture, doesn't it? The musical genre is still a shaky one to invest in.

The second type is the Smash Hit movie. These movies are so incredibly popular that there simply is no point in making another movie in the same vein, at least not for a very long time. Alternatively they out perform the competition and bury it in a shallow grave.

The archetype of this kind of movie is James Cameron's Titanic (1997). What is the point of even trying to make a serious film about the disaster after this one?

The Exorcist (1973) killed the Blaxploitation genre. Apparently it was so popular that black audiences traveled a long distance to see it above watching blaxploitation movies closer to home. This convinced studios to change the line ups in theaters in black neighborhoods. Star Wars (1977) and Jaws (1975) had a similar effect. Jaws also murdered and ate the low-budget summer movies by introducing the summer block buster.

The final entry is the Parody. Movies that lampoon a subject so well that any subsequent movies can't be taken seriously.

Airplane! (1980) took the airport/airplane disaster movies out back and shot them. Back in the 60's and 70's this genre was very popular but Airplane! spoofed it so well that it was impossible to make one afterwards.

While Austin Powers (1997) didn't kill the spy movie genre, it destroyed the lightheartedness in the genre, and it had to evolve and become darker in response to the super popular comedy.

Not Another Teen Movie (2001) and Mean Girls (2004) pretty much wrecked the teen rom-com genre. While it wasn't destroyed and it is possible that the old formula was outdated anyway, these two absolutely did serious damage.

There are of course so many other examples like Wild Wild West and the western/sci-fi crossover, Batman & Robin for the superhero genre although that has been revived with enormous success, Cutthroat Island whacked the pirate adventure until Pirates of the Caribbean and so on. There are also genre killers in all other kinds of media, but one at a time.

So if you suddenly wonder why X type of movies aren't made anymore, look and see if you can spot the genre killer that did the deed. For more reading go here:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/GenreKiller/Film

That's that and all that. Join me again next time, and until then, have a great and safe week!