Since 1966, more than eight Batman, four Spider-Man, and six Superman movies have been released, with another Spider-Man film coming out in July and “Batman vs. Superman” in 2016. How many times can the story of Peter Parker, Bruce Wayne or Clark Kent be retold before audiences lose interest?

The gross earnings of each film adaptation can answer this. Sam Raimi’s 2002 “Spider-Man” distributed by Sony Pictures earned more than $400 million, but the profits for the sequels have declined throughout the the series. “Spider-Man 2” released in 2004 earned around $370 million, while “Spider-Man 3” made less than $340 million.

Finally, “The Amazing Spider-Man,” which is a reboot of the series, only earned around $260 million, a decrease of almost $1 million since the last sequel.

The movie industry needs to take a hint.

The superhero craze is dying.

The stories of Batman and Superman have been told and re-told so many times in so many different ways that any new adaptation of them automatically seems mundane.

On top of this, new superhero movies are typically poorly written. Superhero movies should provide a source for viewer escapism. Audiences understand that the plot is fictional, but the characters should seem real, allowing viewers to identify with them in order to mentally become the characters while watching.

Many contemporary superhero movies do not allow this kind of escapism because they are composed of unrealistic, overly dramatized dialogue. There is no excuse for this.

In this case, screenplay writers do not have to worry about writing plots, allowing them to focus solely on writing realistic scripts.

New superhero movies are also often badly produced, clouded with cheesy special effects. Instead of making a movie look good, producers often rely on loud, trite action scenes to make a movie interesting. These scenes are portrayed in the trailers of movies, attracting action-lovers who often leave the theater disappointed, having found that the only worthwhile scenes of the movie were exposed in the trailer.

In every new superhero movie adapted from a comic, the audience knows the plot. This makes it especially tough to attract interest. This phenomenon is similar to reading a book when someone has ruined the ending.

Qualities of the book other than the plot must be creative and appealing if the author hopes readers will finish it. Watching most superhero movies that have been released throughout the past decade, it seems as though producers do not understand this.

There are too many superhero movies. Rather than trying to flog a dead horse — or in Sony’s case, a radioactive spider — movie producers should focus on writing new stories that will engage viewers in a different way.

Escapism can be achieved through other genres of movies, and through other characters that have not had countless sequels or gritty re-imaginings made about them.

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