Steven Spielberg Expects Superhero Movies to Go ‘the Way of the Western’

Two years ago, after fighting harder than he was used to to get Lincoln into theaters, Steven Spielberg warned that Hollywood was flirting with a “big meltdown” should a few of the ginormous-budgeted tentpoles crash at the box office. Since then, he helped bring Jurassic World to theaters, executive producing the summer blockbuster that grossed more than $1.6 billion around the world.

But he’s still concerned about the industry’s future and the current Hollywood business model that worships comic-book movies. “There will be a time when the superhero movie goes the way of the Western,” Spielberg told the Associated Press, while promoting his fall movie, Bridge of Spies. “Right now the superhero movie is alive and thriving. I’m only saying that these cycles have a finite time in popular culture. There will come a day when the mythological stories are supplanted by some other genre that possibly some young filmmaker is just thinking about discovering for all of us.”

Spielberg’s Cold War movie, which reunites him with Tom Hanks for the first time since The Terminal, arrives in theaters on Oct. 16. The director is currently in post-production on The BFG, an adaptation of Roald Dahl’s children’s book.

This article originally appeared on EW.com