Superheroes: Genre or Medium?

A 90-minute roundtable with writers from several superhero film and television projects.

On October 14, 2021, the Writers Guild of America West’s Genre Committee hosted a roundtable. The subject: Superheroes: Genre or Medium?

While superhero stories are often referred to as a genre of TV and film, they are more like a medium for genre storytelling — each one uniquely inspired by its own specific genre. In this virtual panel, screenwriters and showrunners discuss why their genre was best for telling their characters’ story, which works influenced them, how to reference genre tropes while updating them to keep them fresh, and more.

The panelists: Salim Akil (Black Lightning), Dave Callaham (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings), Cheo Hodari Coker (Luke Cage), Eric Kripke (The Boys), Jac Shaeffer (WandaVision), and Michael Waldron (Loki). Moderator: Elliott David. Here is the video in its entirety.

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