In today’s film industry, the number one genre is without a
doubt the “comic book hero” kind. The
runaway leader of the comic book movie is Marvel Studios, which on Oct 28
announced an astonishing 9 new movies between now and 2019.
If you are
not familiar with what Marvel Studios has done, the quick rundown of it all is
that they are changing the way you watch movies. Marvel Studios connects all of their movies
together into one universe called the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Characters from one movie show up in another
movie in the universe. The universe is
broken down into Phases; the first phase consisted of the origin stories of
Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and The Hulk.
The finale of the Phase was the 2012 movie The Avengers, which as of
this writing is the third highest grossing movie of all time, not adjusted for
inflation.
Phase 1 was
a success because it was consisted of well-known heroes. Audiences were well aware of who the
characters were. Marvel continued the
stories of these characters into Phase 2 of the universe. However, Marvel did something bold for this
phase: introduce to the audience a very unfamiliar group of superheroes into
the universe. This movie was based upon
the comic Guardians of the Galaxy. Critics
were very hesitant about this movie, even predicting that it would be the
downfall of the studio. Long story
short, the movie is the second highest grossing film of 2014. The
film was critically acclaimed as well as many critics even calling it the best
Marvel movie of all time. Phase 2 will end with Avengers: Age of Ultron next
year.
This leads
to the start of Phase 3. Marvel is going
even bolder this go-round with new movies to five new characters as well as five
sequels to previous movies. Ant-Man,
announced last year, will be the lead- in to the new phase. This phase will be the most ground breaking
unlike the past phases, first of which is the first women-lead film in Marvel
movie history, Captain Marvel as well as the first African-American lead film
in the universe, Black Panther. These
will be the biggest risks Marvel Studios has taken since they have started the
cinematic universe.
Marvel is
doing something that will be talked about for a long time. It is already being mimicked by it’s
long-time competitor DC Comics, who themselves are making their own cinematic
universe. With all Marvel Studios movies
being beloved, they can do no wrong at this point. The only company that can bring Marvel down
is themselves, which will be hard to do.
