An MCU Retrospective

photo courtesy of cnet.com

SPOILER-FREE DISCUSSION 

     Avengers: Endgame brings the major, overarching narrative threads of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to a close, and with only one movie left in “Phase Three”—July’s Spider-Man: Far From Home—I think we can officially declare the MCU a win. Throughout its eleven years to date, the Marvel Cinematic Universe reached unprecedented critical and commercial success, earning dependably positive reviews from critics and topping Star Wars to become the highest grossing franchise of all time. More broadly, MCU’s ubiquitous presence reshaped the makeup of Hollywood, inspiring a wave of imitators and lookalikes.

Iron Man. photo courtesy of pursuenews.com

     The reasons for Marvel Studio’s success have been the subject of many a think piece, so I’ll do us all a favor and keep my list short. At the time of this writing, I’d identify these factors:

     1) Excellent casting, primarily Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man.

     2) The proportional success of Iron Man and The Avengers in the early years.

     3) The adoption of the comic book model of storytelling, wherein individual installments function as advertisements for later crossovers.

     4) Fan service. The prime example is The Avengers, which, apart from uniting the titular heroes, also features hero vs. hero fights (Iron Man vs. Thor vs. Captain America, Hulk vs. Thor, Black Widow vs. Hawkeye).

The Avengers. photo courtesy of beamesonfilm.blogspot.com

     5) A movement toward diversity in movies from 2017 on.

     6) A diversity of tones from sub-franchise to sub-franchise (Thor is a vastly different experience compared to Ant-Man, say).

     But in the wake of Avengers: Endgame, it’s perhaps more useful to talk about the effects of the MCU rather than its causes. The most immediate effect is the franchise’s box office performance, which is unlikely to be surpassed by another franchise anytime soon. At the time I’m writing this, Endgame just obliterated opening weekend records from Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Avengers: Infinity War, and box office analysts are considering whether it could even topple Avatar’s $2.7 billion in the top spot. The MCU as a whole now hovers somewhere around the $20 billion mark.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier. photo courtesy of awn.com

     10 years ago, few could have forecasted Marvel’s passing Star Wars on the charts. It would take years of consistent, substantial box office success—something that rarely occurs in any franchise, big or small—and yet that’s exactly what happened. Marvel Studios lost money on maybe one out of its 22 films (that being The Incredible Hulk), even when releasing multiple films in the same year. Let that sink in. Even Star Wars, thought to be guaranteed gold at the domestic box office, recently suffered its first outright failure with Solo: A Star Wars Story, only the 10^th film in that series.

     Even more surprising, the MCU found box office success no matter the time of year. Since the MCU’s arrival, the term “summer blockbuster” has become increasingly meaningless as studios, following the MCU’s example, release major tentpoles in every season. Marvel Studios itself released films in eight of the twelve months (the exceptions being January, September, October, and December), each of them taking the #1 spot at the weekend box office.

Guardians of the Galaxy. photo courtesy of nerdreactor.com

     The post-credits scene has become synonymous with Marvel. MCU movies didn’t invent the concept, but they undoubtedly established it more firmly in mainstream consciousness. Before 2008, only a few blockbusters—including Pirates of the Caribbean, Pixar films, and Marvel’s competitors at Fox-owned X-Men—featured post-credits scenes. Now, post-credit scenes are required reading for superhero films and not infrequent in other genres.

     And then there’s the Marvel model itself: what is now known as a “shared universe.” The MCU was not the first shared universe in film—that honor belongs to Universal’s classic monster movies, which debuted in the 1920s—but it popularized the approach. Nowadays, it seems like every major franchise has attempted or is going to attempt a shared universe, from DC Comics to Legendary’s MonsterVerse (see Godzilla: King of the Monsters in a theater near you!). Even Disney-owned Lucasfilm altered its business model to mirror Marvel, introducing Star Wars spinoffs into the lineup.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the first Star Wars spinoff. photo courtesy of vanityfair.com

     But no one has replicated Marvel Studios’ model with the same consistency or at the same level of box office success. Some less fortunate attempts were met with immediate disaster (Universal’s Dark Universe failed to get off the ground twice), but even the more consistently profitable ventures (like the Conjuring Universe) post smalltime earnings when compared to the MCU. And in a larger sense, it’s hard to think of any other franchise, shared universe or otherwise, that has pulled off anything like 10 years of continuous, interconnected, and reliably profitable storytelling set within the same universe. Not Star Wars, not James Bond, not Harry Potter, not The Lord of the Rings, not Fox’s 19-year-running X-Men franchise.

     Of course, there are plenty of people for whom this kind of achievement amounts to a negative for the industry as a whole. Tentpole films crowd out other, smaller films and effectively silence worthwhile voices and stories. (The same accusation was also leveled at Star Wars and Spielberg beginning in the 1970s, when blockbuster films began to eclipse more sophisticated cinema.) Now there are new factors, like streaming services, that influence the cinema landscape perhaps more forcefully.

Black Panther. photo courtesy of wsj.com

     Other commentators are better equipped to determine whether Marvel and similar blockbusters’ triumph equates to the downfall of more meaningful cinema, but for what it’s worth, the MCU’s films are not entirely homogenous or uncreative; they display a degree of diversity within themselves. As superhero blockbusters crowd out the market, studios need to be more competitive and inventive. A movie that worked in 2010 won’t necessarily fly in 2019. So as much as Marvel has proliferated the presence of superhero films, they have also been a driving force behind evolving the genre, inviting new outlooks to the table, sponsoring creators, and exploring new tones.

     A movie like Iron Man 4, for instance, might have had immediate box office potential, but instead Marvel Studios took relative creative risks with titles like Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man, Thor: Ragnarok, and Black Panther. Those movies didn’t need to exist, and it’s hard to imagine movies like them getting the big-budget treatment without an established brand like Marvel greenlighting them. (Of course, even Iron Man was a risk at the time).

Venom. photo courtesy of thrillist.com

     And other studios took notice. Fox’s Deadpool obviously made quite a splash, but you only need to consider Sony’s Venom, a bad movie that found box office success because it was brazen and weird, to see how Marvel’s experiments with tone have impacted the industry. As much as commentators forecast an impending spell of “superhero fatigue,” it has yet to materialize, at least in part because of the MCU’s willingness to evolve alongside its audience.

     Later years will shed more insight on the MCU’s legacy, both positive and negative. In the meantime, now that Avengers: Endgame brought the MCU’s “Infinity Saga” to a close without any major hiccups, the only remaining question is how long Marvel Studios can keep its historic hot streak alive.

MCU HIGHLIGHTS

Spider-Man: Homecoming. photo courtesy of shortyawards.com

The Best Periods in the MCU:

     1) July 2017-2018, Spider-Man: Homecoming through Avengers: Infinity War, was a series of consistently top-notch films.

     2) 2014, which saw the release of Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy, two of the most highly regarded MCU movies.

The Worst Period in the MCU:

The Incredible Hulk, the black sheep of the Marvel family. photo courtesy of slashfilm.com

     June 2008-2010, The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man 2. These two are rightfully considered some of the weakest MCU movies.

MCU Milestones:

Captain America: Civil War. photo courtesy of marvelcinematicuniverse.fandom.com

     -Iron Man (2008) came out when the superhero genre was dominated by Nolan’s Batman. Its fresh tone and RDJ’s performance gave the MCU its kickstart.

     -The Incredible Hulk (2008). Though it shares some of the later MCU’s hallmarks, this one feels like the last of another type of superhero movie—the dark, pulpier, action-heavy Fox superhero movies like Daredevil (2003) and Ghost Rider (2007).

     -The Avengers (2012) proved the viability of the shared universe model and catapulted the MCU into another level of box office success and pop culture consciousness.

     -Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) and Captain America: Civil War (2016) proved the MCU’s commitment to a truly “shared” universe; at least in theory, the events of one movie have consequences that permeate all the others.

Avengers: Endgame. photo courtesy of nbcnews.com

     -Guardians of the Galaxy (2014). At the time, it represented Marvel’s boldest tonal shift and greatest creative risk.

     -Black Panther (2018) was a milestone for not just the MCU but for all of Hollywood— a landmark film for representation and an unmistakable pop culture phenomenon.

     -Avengers: Endgame (2019) is notable for intentionally bringing the “Infinity Saga” to a close and for its explosive box office performance.