Is everyone ready for the death of the superhero movie? We all knew it was coming, guys. Scary movies had their moment in the sun (some aftershocks like Hostel and Saw are the only survivors), and superhero movies have been around since X-Men proved them financially viable again.

Hollywood is cyclical and anytime they can make a hero out of a nobody they jump on it. It worked for Beverly Hills Cop, It worked for Star Wars, it’s the Hero’s Journey and it worked for Odysseus, for God’s sake ($10 says this is the only Odyssey reference you read all day). Superhero movies will come back, but – let’s face it – the Justice League movie is going to blow, Marvel is running out of money for 2009 releases, and – after Meet The Spartans was an unexpected success – Superhero Movie is going to try to open big and put another nail in the superhero coffin.

Look at this TV spot.

Is it a lot of “mugging” by unknown comedic actors? Check.

Are black people used as props for black people’s sake? Check.

Is it ridiculously topical? Now it is.

How quickly did they slam this movie together to already bring the Tom Cruise parody to the silver screen? Did someone just throw that in there in post production?

The worst thing about the folks who do the Movie movies (both Scary and Superhero) is that they do know the tropes enough to make fun of them.

Which means if this opens big, the audience knows the tropes enough to see them made fun of, which means actual superhero movies are the predictable crap we fear them to be.

This might be a blip on the radar that is incapable of hurting the multiple superhero franchises coming to the screen, or it might be the first horseman calling his mates to come play.

If superhero movies take a dive, and R-rated comedy is on it’s way out, we might be in for a 2009 filled with Juno/Little Miss Sunshine ripoffs, which is going to be too ironically touching to bear.