The Top 11 Genre Media Properties of the Last Decade—Part 2

This is Part 2. You can find Part 1 (and the introduction) HERE.

5. Twilight

The runaway success of what is essentially a non-ironic vampire soap opera is vexing for fans of more traditional genre media. It also seems to come without the usual focus on deep story and “realism” that had been a hallmark of the 2000s.

In the end it’s a tale of teen angst that wears its heart on its sleeve, because that’s all it really has to offer. And while most of the other properties on this list have moved relentlessly forward into spectacle, Twilight is unashamedly old fashioned, focusing on emotion and chastity, with over-wrought and tormented characters that are so forthright they seem to be beyond parody.

But at the same time that genre movies have become increasingly focused on CGI and explosions an entire generation of female fans having been grown up with the gender-bending romance of anime, along with the emotionally driven fantasy of Harry Potter. Given that, along with the fact that women are, statistically, far more likely to read a book, the idea of a creating a strongly female-focused paranormal romance makes a lot of sense.

If the genre continues to grow, and there’s no reason to think it won’t, we’ll see other properties appear in the next decade that are similar, but hopefully with a bit more narrative spine than Twilight’s pastiche of longing looks and romantic clichés.

Theatrical Movie:                   Yes
TV Series:                               No
Novels:                                    Yes
Comics:                                   No
Video Games:                         No
Roleplaying Games:               No
Collectable Card Games:       No

4.The Avengers

Coming into the new millennium, Marvel comics had been all about the X-Men. Not only had they been Marvel’s top comic book superstars since the 1970s, but the decade started off with a shiny new movie that fans felt had finally captured the soul of what made the comic great. Born with strange “mutant” powers that also marked them as outsiders, they had just enough gritty ennui to make them seem more realistic than the typical costumed hero with a hyphenated name and a colorful costume.

But brewing in the background was a revolution. Brian Michael Bendis was cooking up a plan to bring the classic marvel superheroes back to the front burner. His plan was to reboot Marvel’s most venerable team-up book, The Avengers, by putting all their biggest and most-popular heroes, including Spider-Man and Wolverine. The book would be the flagship for the Marvel universe, featuring massive battles set against personal issues that would give this world of costumed do-gooders a genuine sense of verisimilitude.

After killing the old team off in Avengers Disassembled, the comic, now titled “New Avengers” started off with a bang, mining the long history of the Marvel universe and tying together hundreds of loose threads that had cropped up into continuity over the last two decades.

The book was a smash hit. Fans were clearly hungry for this kind of re-invention. It wasn’t just about making the characters gritty, which had been the formula in the 90s; it was about being willing to tell deeper stories, and treat the world like a canvas. It also meant treating the ridiculous with the same degree of intelligence and detail as the sublime. Marvel’s chief-editor, Joe Quesada embraced this vision, and made it work across the line.

The Iron Man film was an attempt to take that formula and make it work on the big screen.  It was a smash hit, with a sequel on the way. But more than just a single hit film, Marvel is attempting to bring continuity to the movies, creating a series of films that share a consistent universe. The Hulk, Captain America, and Thor are all pieces of a puzzle that are supposed to come together with an Avengers film appearing on-screen in 2012.

The fact that Marvel has been able to build up a property with so many characters, and so much flexibility, shows the raw power that they wield now that they’ve been retooled and rebuilt. It will be interesting to see how things go in the next decade with Disney in charge of the cross-media reigns.

Theatrical Movie:                   Yes
TV Series:                               Yes
Novels:                                    Yes
Comics:                                   Yes
Video Games:                         Yes
Roleplaying Games:               Yes
Collectable Card Games:       Yes

3.The Lord of the Rings

While the classic trilogy had been venerable best-sellers for decades, the genre of high fantasy that sprung from them had always had an uneasy relationship with other media. In many ways it existed as a strange child of the seventies, often appearing on-screen in a manner that was goofy and off-putting, with a macramé and clay-pot sensibility that had only reinforced the feeling that it couldn’t really work on the big screen.

But in the 90s Xena and Hercules, although post-modern and sort of a parody, flirted with an edgier vision of modern fantasy. Building on that heritage of New Zealand production, Peter Jackson, using all the tools at his command, created a version of the story that infused the whole production with a new level of detail and craftsmanship that remade the series as a historical epic about a world that never was.

From the clothing to the landscapes, the movies existed as a portal to another reality that often felt richer and more detailed than our own. It wasn’t just a story to watch, it was a place to inhabit. And by the time the final film had won the Oscar for Best Picture, it seemed as if the audience had become almost overwhelmed from the richness of it all.

Still, the series had redefined the vision of fantasy in the mass-market, banishing the seventies excesses, and allowing fantasy a genre to flourish both on-screen and off. With a new series of Tolkien movies starting up production under with Del Toro directing, it will be interesting to see if the franchise has legs longer than a Hobbit’s.

Theatrical Movie:                   Yes
TV Series:                               No
Novels:                                    Yes
Comics:                                   No
Video Games:                         Yes
Roleplaying Games:               Yes
Collectable Card Games:       Yes

2. Batman

In the beginning of the decade Batman was a brand in decline. The “franchise” had been totally derailed by the disaster film known as BATMAN AND ROBIN, effectively killing off an iteration of the character that Tim Burton had started a decade before.

Comic books in general were feeling tired after the over-hyped insanity of the 90s, with Batman having been subjected to numerous interesting re-interpretations, but essentially rudderless.

Even the Animated Series, which had probably done more to define the character as a brand than anything which had come before, had decided to retire Bruce Wayne, and created the futuristic “Batman Beyond” as the standard bearer for the animated continuity.

A mid-decade attempt to reboot an animated version of the character as “The Batman” didn’t manage to find real purchase with the fans, although it did run for five seasons.  The current “Brave and the Bold” cartoon series started in 2008, and is skewed younger, but feels far more iconic.

Meanwhile, back in the comic books, the character slowly found his feet over the course of the decade, with Grant Morrison’s current run finally managing to find a perfect balance between the outlandish and gritty elements of the character that had always seemed to be in conflict before.

But for the brand, the proof that things are different now came with the release of “The Dark Knight”. This second Bat-Film by Christopher Nolan was the ultimate Batman film, with Heath Ledger’s Joker finally giving the character the genuine on-screen menace he deserved.

Batman is a venerable franchise that’s currently firing on all cylinders. It’ll be interesting to see where it ends up going over the next ten years.

Theatrical Movie:                   Yes
TV Series:                               Yes
Novels:                                    Yes
Comics:                                   Yes
Video Games:                         Yes
Roleplaying Games:               Yes
Collectable Card Games:       Yes

1. Harry Potter

While other properties on this list are older and more venerable, Harry Potter is the true ideal of creating and nurturing a cultural phenomenon in the 2000s.

Already rolling when the decade began, the movies and books kept coming out at regular intervals, with the films managing to gracefully transition from a book about magical shool-children, and produce interesting films that on occasion surpassed the narrative of the books they were based on. Meanwhile the hype machine kept relentlessly chugging away, along with a torrent of branded material, and filling store shelves with tiny plastic brooms.

It’s hard to believe that the same pre-teen “kids” who started out reading the first volumes of the series when they are now adults in their 20s, but it’s also hard to believe that they won’t show up to see the final two films.

Already completed in their original novel from, it’s now up to the movies to determine whether the story of the boy wizard will end with a bang or a whimper.

Theatrical Movie:                   Yes
TV Series:                               No
Novels:                                    Yes
Comics:                                   No
Video Games:                         Yes
Roleplaying Games:               No
Collectable Card Games:       Yes
Toys:                                       Yes