Andy Grange said:Just a thought, but are these types of movies a knock-on effect of the writers strike and lack of new material coming through? If you look at the comics and characters that have been around for a number of years, they have huge back stories which film makers can effectively pick and choose pieces from with which to make movies. There is obviously still screenplays / script writing to be done, but the core story and background are effectively there for the taking.
I think it's the usual story with Hollywood, a couple of film of genre X are successful (Spider-Man, Iron Man) and then everyone decides to have a go. It didn't really go crazy until those two succeeded, you'd already had stinkers like Daredevil and every attempt at The Punisher before that.