Let’s talk about the movie trend of the decade: superheroes.

When we consider the ‘80s, we think of fabulously cheesy John Hughes movies like ‘The Breakfast Club.’ The ‘90s were filled with dorm room poster favorites like ‘Pulp Fiction’ and ‘Fight Club.’

When we look back on movies from our time, we’ll see the new millennium is the golden age of the superhero flick.

We’ve got it all. Better special effects, hunkier men in multicolored spandex and more sequels, prequels and reboots than you could count. Maybe we have too much.

On Tuesday, the newest trailer for ‘The Amazing Spiderman’ was released online, featuring Andrew Garfield as the newest incarnation of Peter Parker. The trailer promises an awesome high-flying adventure. And one filmed in 3D at that.

Sony Pictures produced a fantastic-looking trailer. It has all the snark, action and romance a good popcorn flick needs. Everyone and his or her grandma will be lining up for the midnight showing soon enough.

And now, the only lingering memory of poor Tobey Maguire’s Spiderman will be his iconic upside-down alley kiss with Kirsten Dunst.

That’s an issue. ‘Amazing Spiderman’ does look pretty amazing. But a multimillion-dollar Spiderman franchise ended only five years ago. Kids born the year Maguire last donned his Spidey suit have barely started kindergarten.

Yet Marvel is throwing a new three-movie Spiderman deal at audiences and expecting a huge return — which they’ll definitely get. Even the biggest superhero flops make a fortune worldwide.

What studios and screenwriters are learning is a very dangerous thing. If you tweak a story everyone’s already heard, add a few more explosions and new set of popular actors, audiences will come with $7 popcorn in hand. Hollywood executives don’t need to create new ideas. They only need new people to fill the same roles.

When Garfield’s time is up, how long will studios wait to put in a new Spiderman? Maybe Justin Beiber will get his shot at webslinging five years down the road. To continuously tell the same stories, we’re cheapening the ones that really meant something. Everyone will know Hollywood will just do it over again in a few years.

‘Superman Returns’ came out in 2006. Straying from the title, the would-be franchise did not return right away. Now, ‘300’ director Zack Snyder is at the helm of ‘The Man Of Steel,’ slated to be released in 2013. Snyder’s reimaging of the kryptonian’s tale gives Superman just an eight-year hiatus from the silver screen.

‘The Wolverine’ comes out next summer, and Hugh Jackman is sending his mutant character to Japan this time. The trailer and movie will no doubt look awesome, but maybe Wolverine has had enough. They don’t have to fly him all the way to Japan. He should be allowed to collect his pension and retire to wherever X-Men go once they hang up their suits, if he so chooses.

Wolverine is set to go up against the ‘Dirty Dancing’ sequel. Apparently, the lackluster reboot of ‘Footloose’ didn’t prove that ‘80s dancing remakes have had their time.

America doesn’t need Hollywood to redo a movie we loved or to rethink a character that already made millions at the box office. What moviegoers deserve is something new. Something that captures their hearts and minds the way the original stories did.

Ariana Romero is a sophomore magazine journalism major. Her column appears every Thursday. She can be reached at akromero@syr.edu.   

Published on February 8, 2012 at 12:00 pm