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Is The Murder Mystery Genre Dying?

Murder Mystery films and television shows may be some of the best storytelling we have ever seen, but will too many destroy the genre?

It’s been a good long while since the era of Edgar Allan Poe’s brilliant storytelling when he introduced the world to the genre of Murder Mystery. Since then, Poe’s influence has lived on for generations, with countless iconic mysterious murder crime solvers being brought to life.

However, with the genre being as popular as it is, I ask myself the question; will too many murder mystery movies and/or tv shows possibly ruin the genre for us all?

So, it looks like we have a case of our own to solve, which is to determine if this is an issue or if we just simply can’t resist watching a good old case to solve – no matter how many we watch.

Murder Mystery Saturation

Now, personally, I’m a huge fan of a good murder mystery story and especially when it is solved by fictional detectives such as Sherlock & Enola Holmes, Benoit Blanc, Adam Sandler – the list goes on.

I just got to thinking, now that 2023 has begun, there sure were a lot of high-budget murder mystery projects that came out last year. Then I got to thinking about phrases such as “quality over quantity” and realising that saturation of the genre could lead to negative effects in the long term.

I myself enjoyed all of the major killer mystery films from 2022, everything from the sequel to Enola Holmes down to the latest Knives Out sequel Glass Onion. However, with talks of sequels for almost every single project from this genre, it does make me wonder.

We Need More Clues

Just like any good killer crime mystery, you can’t determine the true killer until you have all the clues, and I have a funny feeling the same will be applied to my question. We may just have to wait a few more years, see where the industry goes in the future of this genre, and hope that we aren’t put off from watching overtime.

However, trust me when I say this, there will be a lot more where that came from – “that” being the films we got in 2022 in regard to this topic. So we will revisit this question when we have, as I mentioned, more clues to judge this “case” properly – and we might need Daniel Craig to help us.

I have my fingers crossed for the genre to stay alive, unlike many of its characters of course.