Have you ever found something that tugs at your heart and fills you with a sense of wonder and awe, and that warm fuzzy feeling in your whole body when you come across something wholesome, or even something that would give you Goosebumps in the most wonderful way possible?
Marvel Cinematic Universe manages to make you experience all these feelings and even more, maybe that’s why it’s the most successful mainstream film franchise in today’s time. But that’s just not it, is it? This success is a result of nearly 12 years of meticulous planning and construction of the 23 movies which presently comprise the MCU. Who knew that all those years ago when the first Iron man movie released in theatres, it was going to something so much bigger than just another action flick? As the Marvel’s primary production team revealed in ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ interviews, that they’ve been laying the groundwork for the thrilling conclusion that was Avengers: Endgame for *years*, quite possibly even before the first movie came out. With this it becomes quite evident that this wasn’t some happy-go-lucky going with the flow that lead to the success of this empire, it was a collection of myriad of factors that made MCU stand where it is now.
Beginning with the fact; that how well Marvel knows its audience, with all the movies rated PG-13 these movies don’t target just a particular audience or age-group, these are the movies that parents can happily introduce their kids to, something that kids could watch with their grandparents or even something that’s best suited for a weekend with friends. Besides the emotional appeal, the movies also offer a rational appeal since the lowest ever rotten tomatoes score that any of these movies has ever received is 66% (Thor: the dark world) with ‘Black Panther’ sporting the highest rotten tomatoes score of 96%. So basically, Marvel has won over even the critics with not just their astounding and stunning CGI but with also the individual stories of every superhero that was finally spun into the singular and most breathtaking conclusion to some of their stories and also paving the way for new challenges and new paths that the other heroes are going to undertake.
Another thing that Marvel can boast about is their ‘consistency’ to follow through with their plans which are most often than not, accurately on time if not hindered by some unfortunate issues that fall under the category of a world-wide epidemic. Since 2008, there has been at least one Marvel movie each year (if not two, sometimes even three) thus maintaining a constant contact and an assuring relationship with fans throughout all these years and they almost always have an idea of what the fans want, call it their superpower if it may. With the newfound rise in the popularity of numerous OTT platforms and the laid foundation of Disney+ in 2019 Marvel has worked hard and already released a schedule of numerous shows that the audience can look forward to, for at least the next two years. And from beginning of this year till now; we’ve already been graced with three of these shows that were promised to us back in July 2019 and all the shows, just like the movies continue to blow away the audience and critics with amazing performances by the cast, ground-breaking twists and foreshadowing towards some great experiences and challenges that are to be faced by these characters in the future.
Another thing to ponder upon is that, the risks the production team have taken throughout the years that makes up a peculiar ingredient of their ‘potion of successes’. Kevin Feige, the head of Marvel studios, offered in an interview with Variety: “I’ve always believed in expanding the definition of what Marvel studios could be. We try to keep the audience back in greater numbers by doing the unexpected and not simply following a pattern or a mold or a formula” and it’s pretty evident that this formula of not having a formula works (amazingly well). Back in 2008; when Marvel appointed Jon Favreau as the director for Iron man, and he in turn casted RDJ as the lead, everyone knew it was a gamble with the bad history of substance-abuse with RDJ and Favreau’s lack of experience in making blockbuster superhero movies, but it wasn’t the first and the last time when this unexpected and particularly inexperienced director-actor pair was the key to some of the most highly grossing superhero movies in the history of superhero movies. The other examples include James Gunn being appointed as the director for Guardians of the Galaxy; with his previous experiences lying in the field of making short horror movies and along with that, casting of Chris Pratt who was known for his comic relief role as the fat guy in ‘Parks and recreation’ and we all know how big of a blockbuster was Thor: Ragnarok with the introduction of Taika Waititi, who made us experience Thor’s character in an entirely different context while surprisingly, his previous expertise resided in making heartfelt indie movies.
So I think it’s completely agreeable when I say that this empire was built up from the scratch, I mean I know that Iron Man wasn’t the first movie adaption of the Marvel comics and we already had two incantations of Spiderman and a whole another series for X-men. But a lot of the Spiderman movie rights were sold to Sony for around $7 million because of which that whole Spiderman-leaving-the-mcu dispute happened back in 2019, and similarly Fox holds the major rights for the X-men series. So this movie franchise needed to begin with a whole another base and I believe it’s safe to say that ‘they understood the damn assignment’.
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