Well they did actually come out with a Captain America film in 1990 but that's not particularly relevant overall (it was a really bad movie) and the timing isn't right). This Captain America film was relatively successful with a 368 million worldwide gross (I should note that it grossed about as much in the rest of the world as it did in the US which suggests it resonated with audiences around the world and that it is significantly behind both Iron Man movies and Thor in success). I think a Captain America movie would have remained extremely unsuccessful in this time if not for two specific events. Event one was Iron Man exceeding beyond all expectation. There is a reason they led with Iron Man and not Captain America for the attempt to bring about the Avengers product. I think the reason is that Captain America by himself doesn't fit into our current cultural mindset whereas with Iron Man they had something easier to sell. And Captain America never gets made without Iron Man succeeding. Second, Captain America only got greenlit after they had already confirmed they were going to do an Avengers product. They tied it into everything else thereby making it more likely for people to see it. If they made Captain America in another environment it wouldn't be that successful.

It should be noted as well that Captain America only beat 1978's original Superman movie by 68 million dollars in box office take (which if you adjusted for inflation would be a lot less). It is impossible to peg a movie from the same year as the Matrix but a reasonable point of reference is Batman Forever which came out in 1995 and made 336 million dollars (again inflation adjusted would be more than Captain America). Hell even Batman and Robin in 1997 grossed 238 million (inflation adjusted 333 million) which is almost as much in adjusted terms as Captain America and that movie was considered a spectacular critical bomb. And remember the movie that started the Superhero trend was X-Men which came out in 2000 and grossed 296 million (which would be 388 million in today's dollars). This is what led to studios to start making these. They realized the public would love a new more serious type of Superhero film. It is very important that this predates 9/11 in its success because super hero movies have been mostly equally successful on either side. If anything I'd say Captain America was a relative failure by the standards of its relative peers precisely because people are more cynical about the traditional values he embodies. This led to other properties getting greenlit and begun production on before 9/11. My point is the modern superhero trend predates both in success and tone 9/11 so ascribing 9/11 as the demarcation point does not seem correct. Mostly I call 9/11 convenient because I think it is a useful crutch that film critics can latch onto since the event itself appears so seminal when in fact there were other more important events occurring at the time (the economic crisis I mentioned and the stagnation of the decade that began before 9/11 and the industry changes that were already underway).

In sum I don't really see how your argument fits into history or culture.

Edit:

Interesting addendum the 1990 Captain America movie was made with a very pro-environmental subtext (although given how overt it is hard to call it a subtext) and even contained a statement for support of a specific 1990 Environmental Protection Act at the end.

Cosmopolis was interesting, both as adaptation and as stand-alone movie. Robert Pattinson was quite good. Cronenberg does make a few changes in style with this film, it looks and feels much more futuristic than actual sci-fi films he made like eXistenZor something. Both in cinematography and in sound this film had some serious Fincher influences going. That Cronenweth look and the Reznor-like soundscapes definitely had their impact on Cosmopolis.

Prometheus was very very awesome. I seriously jumped out of my seat in amazement at some sequences in the film. The plot was almost ridiculous at times and there were some serious flaws in some characters and their relationships, but that didn't stop me from enjoying almost every minute of the movie. The best Ridley Scott movie in quite a long time and as far as sci-fi goes, it's just a must for all the fans.

Plot ridiculous how?

We Need to Talk About Kevin
8/10

sorry that was a bad choice of words
The plot as a whole was pretty standard stuff actually, but there were scenes were the story seemed to take a turn that was entirely unnecessary and had no bearing on the plot whatsoever. These facepalm-inducing moments were scarce but noticeable nonetheless. All due to Scott's choice to make this a more action-oriented scifi flick than a mysterious space horror movie. Not a bad choice imo, because otherwise he would've made something like an Alien clone, whereas now the final product is more in the direction of Aliens, but just way better. So it's safe to say that this is by far the best Alien movie since Alien and aside from those precious few scenes with James Cameron-worthy piece-of-shit dialogue where you'll be thinking to yourself "Why, Ridley..WHY???" I can see no way how a fan of the first Alien, or the franchise as a whole if that's your thing, will not be very pleased with Prometheus.


And yeah, crx, the films came out here (Belgium) yesterday and I saw Cosmopolis and Prometheus back to back at the local (bigass) movie theatre.

I love how the two stories fit together pretty damn seamlessly and the transition to horror to action just made sense. Even though Aliens is fully of mad cheesy dialogue I think it adds to the fun, all quotable shiet

+ you have Ripley against the Queen
and the whole "they're inside the room!" countdown and everyone's freaking out