This trailer is better than the last one was, so it’s got that going for it. It also looks more like a video game than any movie trailer I’ve ever seen, I think.

How much more of this? Maybe a lot more, says Ross Douthat:

This was exactly the reaction I had to the original “Iron Man,” whose success enabled Marvel to set in motion the multi-movie build-up to Whedon’s “Avengers.” It, too, was a well-written, well-directed blockbuster, but one that filled me with a kind of creeping despair — because its success guaranteed that the superhero era in American cinema, which then seemed to be waning a bit as lesser franchises failed to do Superman-Batman-Spiderman business, would continue as long as studio executives had semi-well known properties to greenlight (or, in the case of this summer’s completely unnecessary “Spiderman” movie, reboot). If “The Avengers” hits as big in the United States as it’s hitting overseas, its influence will doubtless be even more enduring, guaranteeing us superhero sequels and prequels and reboots and re-reboots as far as the eye (wrapped, of course, in 3-D glasses) can see.

Yeah, if you’re sick of superhero movies, “The Avengers” is a special threat because it’s bound to lead other studios into making multi-film serials. A “Super Friends” package now seems like a fait accompli, with the “Legion of Doom” characters possibly getting their own movies too. Superheroes unto cinematic death. Maybe it’ll be worth watching the same basic story with the same basic F/X told over and over again to reach the point where ambitious directors start reinventing the genre by playing with the conventions of the standard “superhero movie.” That should take, what, another 20 years or so?