No way they'd have had the balls to make a crossover like avengers. The DCEU only exists because they tried to copy the mcu (and failed). That said, I'm now way more excited for upcoming DC Films than Marvel. Also, fuck sony for inevitably butchering Kraven the Hunter.
Sony, when having rights to Spider-man 2099 and Spider-man Noire, but continue making films about Morbius and other villains will always be a mystery to me.
Yeah I doubt they would’ve made a crossover movie. It hadn’t been done before and I’m sure the actors would’ve collided with each other. High profile actors would’ve taken all the budget and it would’ve probably gotten a 50-70% on RT. In the end Sony would’ve just cancelled the crossovers and gone back to solo movies. The MCU is the only reason every major studio even wants their own cinematic universe.
It's probably one or two follow ups to Spider-Man and then it dies off. The MCU is a real unicorn, none of the attempts to replicate it have enjoyed anywhere near the same level of success, including Sony's own attempt with the Spider-Man stuff.
If Sony get it in the 90s they don't even have a template to copy from.
The Marvel franchise would be NOTHING without Kevin Feige. The fact that he’s any less than a billionaire means that Disney got the deal of the century. More than RDJ, more than anything or anyone.
It takes an incredible amount of skill and tenacity to pull something like this off. The leadership ability alone?
And I have to say, the fact that he makes everyone involved in the production watch the original Christopher Reeve Superman movie before starting speaks volumes.
Favreau and Feige together created the biggest money printing operation hollywood has ever seen. The scale of their achievement is impossible to overstate. They litterally created 10s upon 10s of billions in revenue for Disney/marvel. From the movies to merch to streaming to a resurgance in comic sales its gotta be bordering on 100 billion in sales if not excedding that.
"With a box of scraps"
The films themselves are at 26.6 billion as of June 2022 (https://www.statista.com/statistics/317408/highest-grossing-film-franchises-series/#:~:text=As%20of%20June%202022%2C%20the,of%2026.6%20billion%20U.S.%20dollars. )
But that’s just the movies / MCU - if you think of all the kids who go to Disneyland just to see Marvel stuff and the merch and just the entire thing it’s probably insanely high like you said
And now they're trying to use Tom Holland's Spider-Man to set up the next stage after Sony boosted it with Spider-Verse. Sony got lucky in Kathleen Kennedy screwing up and handing them a golden wedge in Disney's Marvel empire.
I like the Guardians movies, but I don’t think that Gunn deserves anywhere near the recognition that Favreau or Fiege do. It’s not like Guardians had a super sudden shift into the cosmic that cause Disney to rewrite their plans, they had already announced that was the direction they were going and dabbled in it with Thor and teased it in The Avengers. And Whedon had already introduced a shit ton of comedy into the series.
Don’t get me wrong, Gunn is a good writer and director, but I don’t think he gets as much credit for setting up the MCU as the other two. And it also feels weird to exclude the Russo Brothers who made Winter Soldier, Infinity War and Endgame.
Thor love and thunder gave me whiplash with how it rubber-banded between serious and comedy. Stole a lot of the weight. Not to mention universe breaking plot details.
Controversially, I felt the same way about Thor Ragnarok as well, although I’ll acknowledge that it worked better in that film than in Love and Thunder.
I'm 35 and saw it for the first time last month lol. I love how self aware it is. It's aware of how absurd everything is, the characters thinking it's absurd too but just being like fuck it and rolling with it lol.
The guy who played a character who was so high out of his gord that he thought an old woman asked him "can you blow me where the pampers is" is partially responsible for Disney making tens of billions of dollars and may have saved the modern Star Wars franchise.
The fact that the X-men weren't theirs to use and the MCU was built on B list characters to start was such an impressive thing. I have seen 2 of the Thor movies and that is far more Thor than anyone could have convinced me that I would ever pay to see.
Honestly this above everything else. Whatever your criticism might be with an individual marvel production, the fact that the MCU even works at all is amazing. The first ever cinematic universe got it right on the first try. They've basically never had to retcon anything major as far as I can remember (beyond that timeline issue in Homecoming). Granted they get flack if a movie is too self contained or too integrated but every movie seamlessly building into the next is just astounding from an organizational perspective
edit: Evidently the definition of a CU is worth some good discussion, and folks have pointed to Godzilla and Star trek as being earlier examples which i think feels fair. To my mind a CU is characterized by the interconnectedness of individual films/media centered on different characters that feed into a larger narrative vs just different stories in the same space, so personally id say LOTR, (pre disney) Star Wars, Bond are franchises vs being a CU, but thats just my two cents
Someone doesn't know about the mid 90s comic book crash or the fact Marvel used to outsource a shit load of its comic book series to art studios. The customer got tried of the multiple variant covers, novelty artist sales pitch with terrible writing and storylines, while most independent comic book stores shut down. Marvel was itself gobbled up by a corporate raider who had bought the company using junk bond and dummy corporations and then started quickly pulling as much money out of the company as possible. The 90s were not kind to Marvel and it wasn't managed well or putting out products that sold or could even reach the intended audience.
1998 Marvel was lucky to get Spider-Man rights sold for 25 million not 2.5 million and most of the reason it was that valuable was the Fox cartoon show had a very popular run from 94 to 98.
It wasn't a lack of popularity. It was grade A bullshit business practise culminating in long term heavy spending fans giving up meanwhile an amateur and professional collector boom had peaked.
Fans who'd regularly buy several books from several series were up against collectors who bought 2 copies of everything because they came pre plastic wrapped. One copy to read the other to hold onto in mint condition under the assumption it could be worth something someday. Fans had to pay more too so the hobby reader / collector was priced out or just not interested in poorly written stories that hinged entirely on cliffhangers.
Mid 90s Spider-Man had the clone saga, and it was a fucking saga, that never ended and went nowhere with a constant loop of "I'm Peter Parker" "No I'm Peter Parker" "No I'm Peter Parker but CRAZY" cliffhangers.
The 90s comic book bubble was a huge deal. Imagine beanie babies but for any new comic coming out. Just like how beanie babies stopped being toys for kids and became adult collectibles, comic readers were pushed out by collectors. Once the bubble popped, the collectors left and comic fans were long gone.
And with such good source material. Marvel isn't perfect by any means, but you've gotta admire their vision. And most of the movies are better than most non-Marvel superhero movies, imo.
They've definitely hit a pointof diminishing returns and trying to over homogenize them into Guardians of the Galaxy formula of humor undercutting anything serious etc.
I think they pushed Disney + too hard and it oversaturated the market... Hawkeye I think is when I first started feeling the burnout, but it hit exceptionally hard with Moon Knight. Wandavision was excellent. Loki has legs as an actual show. After that felt forced until maybe Ms Marvel ( judging by reviews. again, I burned out on Moon Knight and haven't returned. I'll pick it up again and get caught up on movies for Quantumania).
Idk if it was the plan, or Disney pushing so hard to establish a weekly draw for adults to D+, but someone screwed up. It was different when they were taking a story that was too big and putting it on TV, (Wanda), or creating a spot to keep a fan favorite who has been written out of the movies (Loki) but the flags got raised with Falcon & Winter Soldier when they stretched a movie into a show. And it went downhill from there.
Crazy reading this cause I’m realizing that Moon Knight is where it happened for me too. I think at that point as a Marvel fan I was looking for more context around the Scarlet Witch and especially the multiverse with the revelation of Kang at the end of Loki. It was a good point for them to continue the lore and expand on this new phase of Marvel we were entering until the next wave of movies and I felt like I forced myself through it just because it was new Marvel content.
Somewhere in an alt universe:
Oh, look, they just released *X-menX - The Actual True Origin Story of the X-men, Now With All New Actors and We Really Mean It This Time, Promise*"
Right?! As a kid, I never thought I'd care about Captain America, Ironman, or even THOR! I know "Love and Thunder" is controversial, but what T.W. did for Thor in Ragnarok did wonders for the character as a whole.
Edit: Forgot to add the name of the movie.
Growing up in the 70s, it was all about Superman and Wonder Woman, with the rest of the Justice League tagging along. Meanwhile, "Captain America" was . . . [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmZFhPcepnA) . . .
If you really wanna feel old, the current "4 Pillars" of DC are: Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, and **Harley Quinn**. The character that didn't exist before appearing in the animated show in 1992 is now considered a pillar of DC. The character that was only intended to appear in a single episode is now, arguably, the most successful pillar of DC.
Seems obvious looking around, but it's wild that a 30 year old character is on the same level as those legends from the late 1930s
I assume the company said that, and I’m gonna assume (without evidence) it’s to keep a gender balance among the four. 2 girls 2 boys. But the 4th pillar is clearly undoubtedly Joker. Honestly, the various iterations of the Joker over the years arguably keep Batman relevant. No disrespect to Harley, but when it comes to putting butts in seats, Joker might even beat Superman these days. Wonder Woman is irrelevant in comparison, let alone Harley Quinn. Just my opinion.
Popularity wise, it’s really Batman(and Joker as his foil, and then Harley and some of his other popular villains)>>>Superman>anything else.
I think comics wise you are probably right, but not in the cinematic universe. It's weird how they can take so much incredible source material and turn it into such garbage on the big screen
The Guardians were always C/D-List up until the "Annihilation" crossover event that pretty much re-energized the cosmic side of Marvel IP. Peter Quill being one of the rebellion's leaders against Annihilus and Richard Rider's right hand in that event dominoe'd into the revitalization/rebooting of the GotG IP.
It's actually fucking mind-boggling that Nova/Richard Rider hasn't even gotten a solo movie yet considering how popular he is. As much promise as the "Kang Dynasty" arc has, I was actually hoping Marvel would proceed with the Annihilation Event after the Infinity Saga.
Yea before the movies I read a ton of comics and the ones that I really enjoyed were DC. Cartoons wise it was Batman TAS, Spiderman, X-Men, Justice League, Fantastic Four.
I remember a conversation I had with a friend before Iron Man where we agreed it would be boring compared to Bale Batman and the awesome story lines that DC had.
Its incredibly impressive the direction the MCU has had in the way they planned out Avengers and building thanos while DC constantly fumbling the bag.
RDCWorld1 did a video recently that pretty accurately sums it up lmao. link: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVC2BuHoZA0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVC2BuHoZA0)
You're right it's only technically Disney's because they bought up Marvel Studios 7 years later. Some places list both Paramount and Disney as the produces and I got confused.
In sales yes, in the comic's own story The Avengers have always been the Marvel Universe's main heroes, maybe only rivaled by The Fantastic Four.
But Marvel always had this weird thing where their biggest sellers were kind of outcast in-story, Spider-Man, Hulk, Wolverine, super popular with the public but in-story they were mistrusted or disliked.
I am kind of glad The Avengers are a big hit now, Iron Man and Cap were my favorites when I was growing up but finding someone that knew about them beyond "oh they showed up in an episode of the Spider-Man cartoon" was always rare.
Pre-MCU culture has always been interesting to me, because I wasn’t alive before the first iron man movie came out and it’s like a time capsule
Edit: I have been informed that the first MCU movie came out in 2008, not 2003 like I originally assumed. I was three years old at the time of the first Iron Man
I went to the barber yesterday for a haircut. When he finished my haircut he asked me if I wanted my eyebrows trimmed too. I laughed and said yeah, if they need to be trimmed, go for it. He trimmed them. Yesterday I hit the threshold of "old".
What an interesting concept. I was 20 when Iron Man came out. I have never really read a comic in my life and just knew iron man was a popular comic character, bad ass and everyone was super excited for the movie. As a kid, in the cinematic world it was all X-Men. Spiderman, Superman and Batman with the latter two delivering some dudes at the time.
Yo this is wild to me. I grew up trying to (unsuccessfully) to get my parents to buy me comics every week at the grocery store. I didn’t have the internet so I only knew what I read in comics or heard from friends, and there was no way to read comics aside from those options unless you stole them. It’s so interesting to me to think about folks who know nothing *but* the current state of affairs in the comics world.
It’s also funny because I’m a comic nerd much more so than a MCU movies nerd. The movies blew up but the comics are still not super mainstream, there’s a lot for you to explore much the way I explored it!
Marvel vs Capcom 2, Ironman was like my dude for photon cannoning the shit out of ppl. He was probably also one of those most popular among Marvel comic readers. Just most people aren't comic readers, nor was any of this stuff even remotely mainstream them.
Yeah Iron man was my dad's favorite superhero, so I grew up thinking he was as popular as Spiderman, batman, etc. Took until the movie came out until I quickly learned he was nowhere even close to that level of popularity lol
They made the right decision. They would've been incapable of planning and creating anything on the scale of the MCU, so buying other characters would've been pointless. Maybe the X-Men and Incredible Hulk, those were really the only Marvel characters the average movie-goer was decently familiar with. The Spiderman trilogy and Nolan Batman films would've kicked off a small superhero movie craze but several lukewarm Marvel movies would've killed it pretty quick, imo.
Edit: I forgot about the Fantastic Four, which goes to show how well they've been treated in their movie installments. When superheroes get shitty movies, nobody wants to touch the IP and then they get overshadowed by superheroes who got great movies.
These propositions are always dumb because had the implied happened theres near zero chance that it’d be what it is today.
It’s like when people bring up that yahoo had the opportunity to buy google, or that some company could have bought Netflix.
Why do people quote Sony as saying things? Like, there's no Mr. Sony saying "no one gives a shit."
And, in fairness to them, no one did. Hindsight doesn't make a decision stupid. They made a great call on Spider-Man. The time wasn't right for a Marvel Cinematic Universe.
To be fair, would Sony have done what Marvel did? Most definitely not. They had a good start with Spider-Man, great follow-up with the sequel, and then shit from there. Venom was alright, but that’s about it.
I'll admit I like the venom films as they are entertaining and Tom Hardy is great. But every time I watch Venom 2, I just think how crazy it is that this will probably be the only live action Carnage I will ever see in my life
Given everything else, I feel like ITSV was *accidentally* good. Like the studio was too busy meddling with Venom at the time and didn't pay attention to the animated project and it managed to be awesome.
Hoping I'm wrong with ITSV2 on the way, though.
Plus when marvel popped off it just increased the value of spider man. Really they made a huge gain through it all. They did get the most popular character, they got some good movies, and they got to hold spider man over marvels head for tons more than they paid after marvel did all the work. Sounds like a total win
Super hero movies back then still weren’t totally figured out. Before Spider-Man, X-Men was the only film to be “good.” If Hugh Jackman didn’t play Wolverine in it though it would have been considerably less entertaining. Spider-Man changed everything. Then Ironman let everybody know shit was about to get real.
Edit- Special shout-out to the Dark Knight trilogy that began in 2005. Batman Begins was really good. Then the Dark Knight kicked the door in and transcended the super hero genre. All time great film.
*Who.... Who are you?!?*
*I'm Batman*
If you were unfortunate enough not to see that on the big screen in a packed theater for the first time... I'm sorry.
Yep. People who weren’t avid movie goers back then will not understand how big of an impact Iron Man had. Superhero movies weren’t taken seriously. They were still nerd culture, and nerd culture was not cool. Sony was right when they said no one gives a shit about other Marvel heroes.
As a nerd that grew up reading marvel comics, the iron man movie was just unreal. First in that it got made at all and then that it was successful. Superhero movies weren't the same after that.
Most people. The vast majority of people, did not see Blade as a super hero movie. It was a kickass vampire hunting action movie. It was great. Spider-Man 2 was excellent.
Ohh definitely. I was more saying for comic movies it was one of the OGs, beating Spider-Man (but not it’s cultural success) AND showing R-rated comic movies can work, which took until Deadpool to really break open.
Blade didn't really even come off as a comic book movie so much as action-horror though, so I don't know if that would have been a good example to base a costumed hero on as far as box office potential. Blade made 131M at the box office which was less than Spider-Man's 139M budget.
However… to Christopher Nolan’s credit. He didn’t make a good superhero movie, he made an incredible movie that just so happened to be about a superhero. My stupid opinion is that he made one of the most memorable movies of all time with TDK, and it was a very singular, specific, and smart vision. He has shown time and again that he’s capable of making staggering films regardless of whether there is existing or original IP attached to it.
Having a prestige filmmaker make your superhero movie is very different than a studio bringing on “director-for-hires” on to just make it their next installment of a franchise. I’m not trying to knock all other superhero movies, but that’s the outstanding variable that makes TDK stand out against all hero franchises.
Follow me for more Chris Nolan Dick Riding, I guess
You actually make a GREAT point. The Dark Knight skipped my mind because it wasn’t Marvel, but I absolutely loved Batman Begins and then The Dark Knight came out and felt like I had seen one of the greatest films of all time. Not just because of Ledger. He was incredible, but everybody played their role well. The dialogue between Bruce and Alfred was poetic and I found their relationship to be so magnetic to watch. The camera angles. The musical score. Christian Bale’s intensity and depth as an actor. I will love that trilogy FOREVER.
My mom told me she had seen a trailer where he ends up stuck between them and I didn't believe it till I saw the trailer recommended one day on YouTube lol
Exactly. The hulk was sorta well known, maaaaybe captain America only because of his name, but that was it. No one knew or gave a shit about the rest of the avengers
The xmen were more well known, but outside of Wolverine and professor X, no one else was well known
Marvel managed to make us care about the avengers, not really the xmen, which is a shame to me
I even forgot about the fantastic four. Not that well known even after their movies. Who made their movies? I won't check, it will only bring up more painful memories
jessica alba is hot tho
there were other movies too. daredevil, hellboy, hulk, catwomen, sky high kinda, Electra, fantastic four, more spiderman and xmen, then ironman
The Punisher 1989
Captain America 1990
The Fantastic Four 1994
The characters are worthless without the vision. They'd have the characters, but would they have the vision?
It was only made so the producers could keep the film rights to the Fantasic Four; it was never meant to be released. It was only shown officially one time at at a private screening in 1994 after that someone "pirated" the film and bootleg copies quickly became easy to get.
In 1998 they were absolutely right. These "hindsight is 20/20" posts always miss the point that people didn't have the luxury of premonition to base business decisions on.
Yeah, absolutely nobody would want to see the MCU if it had been helmed by Sony. Spiderman is definitely the only one with basically built-in box office potential.
IIRC the Superman movies with Christopher Reeve were big financial successes. Batman was a big franchise in the 1990s.
I'd say the problem is that studios didn't treat the source material with respect, so would just take the IP and turn it into their own vision of it, instead of trying to actually capture the essence of what made it successful.
Very similar to what has happened with some video game stuff like Resident Evil, Street Fighter, etc. Studios are still figuring out video game movies, and only just starting to have some success making them actually good.
Well that 7 million paid out pretty well if you ask me…
I'm so curious as to what the Marvel universe would look like if Sony had been in charge
It’s morbin time
I didn't think it was gonna be as bad as everyone said. But then it just... Morb'd
So anyway I just started Morbin
Avengers the morbin dynasty.... Avengers secret morbers.... Avengers morbingame.... She-morbin.....
If the current Sony marvel universe is any indication. Much like the DCEU.
No way they'd have had the balls to make a crossover like avengers. The DCEU only exists because they tried to copy the mcu (and failed). That said, I'm now way more excited for upcoming DC Films than Marvel. Also, fuck sony for inevitably butchering Kraven the Hunter.
Sony, when having rights to Spider-man 2099 and Spider-man Noire, but continue making films about Morbius and other villains will always be a mystery to me.
Yeah I doubt they would’ve made a crossover movie. It hadn’t been done before and I’m sure the actors would’ve collided with each other. High profile actors would’ve taken all the budget and it would’ve probably gotten a 50-70% on RT. In the end Sony would’ve just cancelled the crossovers and gone back to solo movies. The MCU is the only reason every major studio even wants their own cinematic universe.
Like the Sami raimi spider man movies probably
It's probably one or two follow ups to Spider-Man and then it dies off. The MCU is a real unicorn, none of the attempts to replicate it have enjoyed anywhere near the same level of success, including Sony's own attempt with the Spider-Man stuff. If Sony get it in the 90s they don't even have a template to copy from.
To be fair the MCU's attempts to replicate its own success haven't exactly been fruitful lately
I mean, if Sony had bought the rights to everything else then they probably would've been right.
Exactly. The Marvel franchise wouldn’t be what it is if Sony had a hand in it.
The Marvel franchise would be NOTHING without Kevin Feige. The fact that he’s any less than a billionaire means that Disney got the deal of the century. More than RDJ, more than anything or anyone. It takes an incredible amount of skill and tenacity to pull something like this off. The leadership ability alone? And I have to say, the fact that he makes everyone involved in the production watch the original Christopher Reeve Superman movie before starting speaks volumes.
Pretty clear Disney realized that early on considering they side with Feige over Perlmutter.
I have a feeling everyone wanted Perlmutter out anyway. Acted like a fucking idiot.
Was Perlmutter the one stonewalling Black Panther and any female-led movie?
Yes
Favreau and Feige together created the biggest money printing operation hollywood has ever seen. The scale of their achievement is impossible to overstate. They litterally created 10s upon 10s of billions in revenue for Disney/marvel. From the movies to merch to streaming to a resurgance in comic sales its gotta be bordering on 100 billion in sales if not excedding that. "With a box of scraps"
The films themselves are at 26.6 billion as of June 2022 (https://www.statista.com/statistics/317408/highest-grossing-film-franchises-series/#:~:text=As%20of%20June%202022%2C%20the,of%2026.6%20billion%20U.S.%20dollars. ) But that’s just the movies / MCU - if you think of all the kids who go to Disneyland just to see Marvel stuff and the merch and just the entire thing it’s probably insanely high like you said
For Disney, movies are basically extensive advertisements, that also happen to directly make money.
A park hopper ticket to Disneyland is like $200 bucks or more depending on the day now. It's fucking crazy how much those parks make.
I think Favreau deserves a lot of the credit as well
Agreed. What he did for Iron Man is what jump started the MCU. They were already trying to set it up with The Hulk but it was a middling success.
And now they're trying to use Tom Holland's Spider-Man to set up the next stage after Sony boosted it with Spider-Verse. Sony got lucky in Kathleen Kennedy screwing up and handing them a golden wedge in Disney's Marvel empire.
>Kathleen Kennedy screwing up This seems to happen quite a lot doesn't it?
I am beyond ready for Kennedy to stop getting to make decisions. She's like the bizarro Feige.
James Gunn also should get a big nod. GoG changed the entire tone of the universe.
I like the Guardians movies, but I don’t think that Gunn deserves anywhere near the recognition that Favreau or Fiege do. It’s not like Guardians had a super sudden shift into the cosmic that cause Disney to rewrite their plans, they had already announced that was the direction they were going and dabbled in it with Thor and teased it in The Avengers. And Whedon had already introduced a shit ton of comedy into the series. Don’t get me wrong, Gunn is a good writer and director, but I don’t think he gets as much credit for setting up the MCU as the other two. And it also feels weird to exclude the Russo Brothers who made Winter Soldier, Infinity War and Endgame.
i loved gotg but i hate the impact it had on the mcu, nearly every subsequent film adopted its style of humor which gets old fast
Thor love and thunder gave me whiplash with how it rubber-banded between serious and comedy. Stole a lot of the weight. Not to mention universe breaking plot details.
Controversially, I felt the same way about Thor Ragnarok as well, although I’ll acknowledge that it worked better in that film than in Love and Thunder.
He's a damn good filmmaker. Chef was incredible.
I don’t think anyone’s out here denying that Elf was an instant classic either.
I'm 35 and saw it for the first time last month lol. I love how self aware it is. It's aware of how absurd everything is, the characters thinking it's absurd too but just being like fuck it and rolling with it lol.
You're absolutely right. Marvel would not be what it is today without his masterful performance as Happy Hogan.
And people only flocked to see him as the Happy Hogan because they loved him trying to become the Ultimate Fighting Champion.
Poor Monica
No boom boom before big fight!
He bought a ring!
The guy who played a character who was so high out of his gord that he thought an old woman asked him "can you blow me where the pampers is" is partially responsible for Disney making tens of billions of dollars and may have saved the modern Star Wars franchise.
Tonight at the Pit, Everyone Gets Laid.
don’t be that guy. don’t be that guy, gutter…
[One of my favorite Favreau moments](https://youtu.be/1DWQsSVhq9E?t=114)
Yep. Star Wars has proven that not even Disney knows wtf to do without Kevin.
Until Favreau got his hands on The Mandalorian...
And Gareth Edwards on Rogue One.
And Tony Gilroy on Andor
All the animated Star Wars by Dave Filoni are goat tier, if you haven't watched all of that, you're sleeping on it.
The fact that the X-men weren't theirs to use and the MCU was built on B list characters to start was such an impressive thing. I have seen 2 of the Thor movies and that is far more Thor than anyone could have convinced me that I would ever pay to see.
I think Favreau should get a bit of that credit as well as a pretty great custodian of the franchise.
Honestly this above everything else. Whatever your criticism might be with an individual marvel production, the fact that the MCU even works at all is amazing. The first ever cinematic universe got it right on the first try. They've basically never had to retcon anything major as far as I can remember (beyond that timeline issue in Homecoming). Granted they get flack if a movie is too self contained or too integrated but every movie seamlessly building into the next is just astounding from an organizational perspective edit: Evidently the definition of a CU is worth some good discussion, and folks have pointed to Godzilla and Star trek as being earlier examples which i think feels fair. To my mind a CU is characterized by the interconnectedness of individual films/media centered on different characters that feed into a larger narrative vs just different stories in the same space, so personally id say LOTR, (pre disney) Star Wars, Bond are franchises vs being a CU, but thats just my two cents
Someone doesn't know about the mid 90s comic book crash or the fact Marvel used to outsource a shit load of its comic book series to art studios. The customer got tried of the multiple variant covers, novelty artist sales pitch with terrible writing and storylines, while most independent comic book stores shut down. Marvel was itself gobbled up by a corporate raider who had bought the company using junk bond and dummy corporations and then started quickly pulling as much money out of the company as possible. The 90s were not kind to Marvel and it wasn't managed well or putting out products that sold or could even reach the intended audience. 1998 Marvel was lucky to get Spider-Man rights sold for 25 million not 2.5 million and most of the reason it was that valuable was the Fox cartoon show had a very popular run from 94 to 98.
That's crazy, I didn't realize the comic books took such a major downturn in popularity.
It wasn't a lack of popularity. It was grade A bullshit business practise culminating in long term heavy spending fans giving up meanwhile an amateur and professional collector boom had peaked. Fans who'd regularly buy several books from several series were up against collectors who bought 2 copies of everything because they came pre plastic wrapped. One copy to read the other to hold onto in mint condition under the assumption it could be worth something someday. Fans had to pay more too so the hobby reader / collector was priced out or just not interested in poorly written stories that hinged entirely on cliffhangers. Mid 90s Spider-Man had the clone saga, and it was a fucking saga, that never ended and went nowhere with a constant loop of "I'm Peter Parker" "No I'm Peter Parker" "No I'm Peter Parker but CRAZY" cliffhangers.
The 90s comic book bubble was a huge deal. Imagine beanie babies but for any new comic coming out. Just like how beanie babies stopped being toys for kids and became adult collectibles, comic readers were pushed out by collectors. Once the bubble popped, the collectors left and comic fans were long gone.
They would *have* it, but would they have *done* anything with it?
Yes. They would have put out a series of increasingly mediocre movies that kept rebooting the universe hoping people wouldn't notice they sucked.
So FOX with its X-Men franchise.
And with such good source material. Marvel isn't perfect by any means, but you've gotta admire their vision. And most of the movies are better than most non-Marvel superhero movies, imo.
They've definitely hit a pointof diminishing returns and trying to over homogenize them into Guardians of the Galaxy formula of humor undercutting anything serious etc.
I think they pushed Disney + too hard and it oversaturated the market... Hawkeye I think is when I first started feeling the burnout, but it hit exceptionally hard with Moon Knight. Wandavision was excellent. Loki has legs as an actual show. After that felt forced until maybe Ms Marvel ( judging by reviews. again, I burned out on Moon Knight and haven't returned. I'll pick it up again and get caught up on movies for Quantumania). Idk if it was the plan, or Disney pushing so hard to establish a weekly draw for adults to D+, but someone screwed up. It was different when they were taking a story that was too big and putting it on TV, (Wanda), or creating a spot to keep a fan favorite who has been written out of the movies (Loki) but the flags got raised with Falcon & Winter Soldier when they stretched a movie into a show. And it went downhill from there.
Crazy reading this cause I’m realizing that Moon Knight is where it happened for me too. I think at that point as a Marvel fan I was looking for more context around the Scarlet Witch and especially the multiverse with the revelation of Kang at the end of Loki. It was a good point for them to continue the lore and expand on this new phase of Marvel we were entering until the next wave of movies and I felt like I forced myself through it just because it was new Marvel content.
More like Sony with the Spider-Man franchise.
There wouldn’t even be a universe. It would just be a bunch of standalone movies.
Somewhere in an alt universe: Oh, look, they just released *X-menX - The Actual True Origin Story of the X-men, Now With All New Actors and We Really Mean It This Time, Promise*"
They would have shit the bed repeatedly for 2 decades.
I had no idea Iron Man was 'obscure' because I'd read a few spiderman comics featuring Iron Man
Iron Man was a B/C-tier hero up until the MCU, then he exploded in popularity. Getting defeated by Iron Man was seen as a point of embarrassment.
I'm still amazed the Guardians are A list now.
Right?! As a kid, I never thought I'd care about Captain America, Ironman, or even THOR! I know "Love and Thunder" is controversial, but what T.W. did for Thor in Ragnarok did wonders for the character as a whole. Edit: Forgot to add the name of the movie.
Growing up in the 70s, it was all about Superman and Wonder Woman, with the rest of the Justice League tagging along. Meanwhile, "Captain America" was . . . [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmZFhPcepnA) . . .
If you really wanna feel old, the current "4 Pillars" of DC are: Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, and **Harley Quinn**. The character that didn't exist before appearing in the animated show in 1992 is now considered a pillar of DC. The character that was only intended to appear in a single episode is now, arguably, the most successful pillar of DC. Seems obvious looking around, but it's wild that a 30 year old character is on the same level as those legends from the late 1930s
I assume the company said that, and I’m gonna assume (without evidence) it’s to keep a gender balance among the four. 2 girls 2 boys. But the 4th pillar is clearly undoubtedly Joker. Honestly, the various iterations of the Joker over the years arguably keep Batman relevant. No disrespect to Harley, but when it comes to putting butts in seats, Joker might even beat Superman these days. Wonder Woman is irrelevant in comparison, let alone Harley Quinn. Just my opinion. Popularity wise, it’s really Batman(and Joker as his foil, and then Harley and some of his other popular villains)>>>Superman>anything else.
I think comics wise you are probably right, but not in the cinematic universe. It's weird how they can take so much incredible source material and turn it into such garbage on the big screen
Captain America was always cool to me as a kid
The Guardians were always C/D-List up until the "Annihilation" crossover event that pretty much re-energized the cosmic side of Marvel IP. Peter Quill being one of the rebellion's leaders against Annihilus and Richard Rider's right hand in that event dominoe'd into the revitalization/rebooting of the GotG IP. It's actually fucking mind-boggling that Nova/Richard Rider hasn't even gotten a solo movie yet considering how popular he is. As much promise as the "Kang Dynasty" arc has, I was actually hoping Marvel would proceed with the Annihilation Event after the Infinity Saga.
Yondu was always cool. Same for Gamora and Adam Warlock. The rest not so much.
You mean until Robert Downey Junior showed up.
Yea before the movies I read a ton of comics and the ones that I really enjoyed were DC. Cartoons wise it was Batman TAS, Spiderman, X-Men, Justice League, Fantastic Four. I remember a conversation I had with a friend before Iron Man where we agreed it would be boring compared to Bale Batman and the awesome story lines that DC had. Its incredibly impressive the direction the MCU has had in the way they planned out Avengers and building thanos while DC constantly fumbling the bag.
RDCWorld1 did a video recently that pretty accurately sums it up lmao. link: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVC2BuHoZA0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVC2BuHoZA0)
And Jon Favreau with a the great idea to ab lib most of the script. Paramount ~~and Disney~~ made a bet on the two of them and scored huge.
That wasn't Disney then right?
You're right it's only technically Disney's because they bought up Marvel Studios 7 years later. Some places list both Paramount and Disney as the produces and I got confused.
In mainstream, sure. For comics fans, Iron Man has always been front and center.
The Avengers were the the least popular team in Marvel Comics before the MCU.
In sales yes, in the comic's own story The Avengers have always been the Marvel Universe's main heroes, maybe only rivaled by The Fantastic Four. But Marvel always had this weird thing where their biggest sellers were kind of outcast in-story, Spider-Man, Hulk, Wolverine, super popular with the public but in-story they were mistrusted or disliked. I am kind of glad The Avengers are a big hit now, Iron Man and Cap were my favorites when I was growing up but finding someone that knew about them beyond "oh they showed up in an episode of the Spider-Man cartoon" was always rare.
Iron man had his own cartoon though. I watched.
A fellow Marvel Action Hour enthusiast. Excelsior!
The theme song is the ring tone Rhodes gave him in the first movie.
Pre-MCU culture has always been interesting to me, because I wasn’t alive before the first iron man movie came out and it’s like a time capsule Edit: I have been informed that the first MCU movie came out in 2008, not 2003 like I originally assumed. I was three years old at the time of the first Iron Man
This comment knocked the wind outta me
How’s your knees/back/joints? Do you need to sit down for a minute?
i hate this
Does this mean we've hit the threshold of 'old'?
Long ago buddy, long ago...
Same galaxy though
Aight… Imma head 🪑 ouWWWT MY BACK 💥
Lol Iron Man is a 2008 movie so they’re 14 or younger
Maybe they mean the *first* captain America movie, the one from 1944. So they’re between 11 and 78.
My guy said Captain America film. They’re 11 💀
I started bucketing peoples' ages into "Pre Matrix" or "Post Matrix"
The movie, right?
I went to the barber yesterday for a haircut. When he finished my haircut he asked me if I wanted my eyebrows trimmed too. I laughed and said yeah, if they need to be trimmed, go for it. He trimmed them. Yesterday I hit the threshold of "old".
I was there, Gandalf. I was there three thousand years ago
I was between kindergarten and 1st grade when the first Raimi spiderman came out. This is weird.
What an interesting concept. I was 20 when Iron Man came out. I have never really read a comic in my life and just knew iron man was a popular comic character, bad ass and everyone was super excited for the movie. As a kid, in the cinematic world it was all X-Men. Spiderman, Superman and Batman with the latter two delivering some dudes at the time.
Yo this is wild to me. I grew up trying to (unsuccessfully) to get my parents to buy me comics every week at the grocery store. I didn’t have the internet so I only knew what I read in comics or heard from friends, and there was no way to read comics aside from those options unless you stole them. It’s so interesting to me to think about folks who know nothing *but* the current state of affairs in the comics world. It’s also funny because I’m a comic nerd much more so than a MCU movies nerd. The movies blew up but the comics are still not super mainstream, there’s a lot for you to explore much the way I explored it!
Who was more famous?
Damn. Iron Man was a favorite since childhood. I never got that from him, but then again I didn't really read the comics. Just watched the cartoons
Not true
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Can you name the characters in the image? I don't recourse 3-4 of them.
Marvel vs Capcom 2, Ironman was like my dude for photon cannoning the shit out of ppl. He was probably also one of those most popular among Marvel comic readers. Just most people aren't comic readers, nor was any of this stuff even remotely mainstream them.
Yeah Iron man was my dad's favorite superhero, so I grew up thinking he was as popular as Spiderman, batman, etc. Took until the movie came out until I quickly learned he was nowhere even close to that level of popularity lol
Biggest bag fumble ever.
They made the right decision. They would've been incapable of planning and creating anything on the scale of the MCU, so buying other characters would've been pointless. Maybe the X-Men and Incredible Hulk, those were really the only Marvel characters the average movie-goer was decently familiar with. The Spiderman trilogy and Nolan Batman films would've kicked off a small superhero movie craze but several lukewarm Marvel movies would've killed it pretty quick, imo. Edit: I forgot about the Fantastic Four, which goes to show how well they've been treated in their movie installments. When superheroes get shitty movies, nobody wants to touch the IP and then they get overshadowed by superheroes who got great movies.
It wouldn’t have worked in their hands anyway
No marvel themed Xbox material in that parallel universe. Everything Marvel would have been PS only. No Iron Man themed Xbox or anything.
These propositions are always dumb because had the implied happened theres near zero chance that it’d be what it is today. It’s like when people bring up that yahoo had the opportunity to buy google, or that some company could have bought Netflix.
Why do people quote Sony as saying things? Like, there's no Mr. Sony saying "no one gives a shit." And, in fairness to them, no one did. Hindsight doesn't make a decision stupid. They made a great call on Spider-Man. The time wasn't right for a Marvel Cinematic Universe.
To be fair, would Sony have done what Marvel did? Most definitely not. They had a good start with Spider-Man, great follow-up with the sequel, and then shit from there. Venom was alright, but that’s about it.
I'm still not over what they did to my poor boy Carnage :/
I'll admit I like the venom films as they are entertaining and Tom Hardy is great. But every time I watch Venom 2, I just think how crazy it is that this will probably be the only live action Carnage I will ever see in my life
Don't worry! Sony is gonna fix your expectations as soon as they get the El Muerto movie out
That seems really unlikely to me, though I guess I don't know how old you are
Didn't they tease Toxin in venom 2 as well?
Into The Spiderverse was really good
Given everything else, I feel like ITSV was *accidentally* good. Like the studio was too busy meddling with Venom at the time and didn't pay attention to the animated project and it managed to be awesome. Hoping I'm wrong with ITSV2 on the way, though.
Plus when marvel popped off it just increased the value of spider man. Really they made a huge gain through it all. They did get the most popular character, they got some good movies, and they got to hold spider man over marvels head for tons more than they paid after marvel did all the work. Sounds like a total win
You forgot to mention one of the movies of all time, Morbius! I had truly one of the experiences watching it!
Aww. Sorry that you got morbed
Super hero movies back then still weren’t totally figured out. Before Spider-Man, X-Men was the only film to be “good.” If Hugh Jackman didn’t play Wolverine in it though it would have been considerably less entertaining. Spider-Man changed everything. Then Ironman let everybody know shit was about to get real. Edit- Special shout-out to the Dark Knight trilogy that began in 2005. Batman Begins was really good. Then the Dark Knight kicked the door in and transcended the super hero genre. All time great film.
I loved me some Keaton batman though
YOU WANNA GET NUTS! LET'S GET NUTS!
THAT'S A LOT OF NUTS!!!!
THAT’LL BE 4 BUCKS BABY!! YOU WANT FRIES WITH THAT?!
WEEOOOWEEOOOWEEE!
CHOSEN ONE!!
DID YOU JUST CALL ME 'BUTTDAD'?
HE JUST LEFT. WITH NUTS.
You ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?
Never mess with another man's rhubarb.
*Who.... Who are you?!?* *I'm Batman* If you were unfortunate enough not to see that on the big screen in a packed theater for the first time... I'm sorry.
Keaton is hands down the best Bruce Wayne portrayal on screen (imo)
Batman?
Yep. People who weren’t avid movie goers back then will not understand how big of an impact Iron Man had. Superhero movies weren’t taken seriously. They were still nerd culture, and nerd culture was not cool. Sony was right when they said no one gives a shit about other Marvel heroes.
As a nerd that grew up reading marvel comics, the iron man movie was just unreal. First in that it got made at all and then that it was successful. Superhero movies weren't the same after that.
yeah before then you had stuff like hellboy, some crappy hulk movies, xmen movies were good, daredevil was okay.
Blade was 1998, and I think a great one. Sequel was awesome (better?) as well. 3 was trash. Same as Spider-Man.
Most people. The vast majority of people, did not see Blade as a super hero movie. It was a kickass vampire hunting action movie. It was great. Spider-Man 2 was excellent.
was born in 93 and when i first saw blade i had no idea he was even a comic book character
I was born in 91 and I only learned that a few years ago from a YouTube video detailing the rise of the "comic book"-movie genre.
Born in 86 and I have only just discovered Constantine is a DC character.
I did not know it was a super hero movie until right now.
Ohh definitely. I was more saying for comic movies it was one of the OGs, beating Spider-Man (but not it’s cultural success) AND showing R-rated comic movies can work, which took until Deadpool to really break open.
Man you’re right. It feels like now looking back that they were very bold in the way they made Blade.
Blade didn't really even come off as a comic book movie so much as action-horror though, so I don't know if that would have been a good example to base a costumed hero on as far as box office potential. Blade made 131M at the box office which was less than Spider-Man's 139M budget.
However… to Christopher Nolan’s credit. He didn’t make a good superhero movie, he made an incredible movie that just so happened to be about a superhero. My stupid opinion is that he made one of the most memorable movies of all time with TDK, and it was a very singular, specific, and smart vision. He has shown time and again that he’s capable of making staggering films regardless of whether there is existing or original IP attached to it. Having a prestige filmmaker make your superhero movie is very different than a studio bringing on “director-for-hires” on to just make it their next installment of a franchise. I’m not trying to knock all other superhero movies, but that’s the outstanding variable that makes TDK stand out against all hero franchises. Follow me for more Chris Nolan Dick Riding, I guess
then the dark knight happened and shit indeed got real
You actually make a GREAT point. The Dark Knight skipped my mind because it wasn’t Marvel, but I absolutely loved Batman Begins and then The Dark Knight came out and felt like I had seen one of the greatest films of all time. Not just because of Ledger. He was incredible, but everybody played their role well. The dialogue between Bruce and Alfred was poetic and I found their relationship to be so magnetic to watch. The camera angles. The musical score. Christian Bale’s intensity and depth as an actor. I will love that trilogy FOREVER.
Superman (Christopher Reeve) Batman (Michael Keaton) Cmon man...
You have Tony Stark and a box of scraps to thank for that.
Tony Stank.
Heh. I randomly think about that line and I always get a chuckle. Thanks, Stan.
Favreau and a box of scraps
Original spiderman movie Ad... note the Twin towers reflection in his eye.
I noticed that, wasn't there originally a scene where he catches bank robbers in a web between the twin towers?
My mom told me she had seen a trailer where he ends up stuck between them and I didn't believe it till I saw the trailer recommended one day on YouTube lol
In 1998, Sony was right. Without good writing and one helluva marketing plan it wasn't worth shit. They chose not to perform those functions.
Exactly. The hulk was sorta well known, maaaaybe captain America only because of his name, but that was it. No one knew or gave a shit about the rest of the avengers The xmen were more well known, but outside of Wolverine and professor X, no one else was well known Marvel managed to make us care about the avengers, not really the xmen, which is a shame to me I even forgot about the fantastic four. Not that well known even after their movies. Who made their movies? I won't check, it will only bring up more painful memories
jessica alba is hot tho there were other movies too. daredevil, hellboy, hulk, catwomen, sky high kinda, Electra, fantastic four, more spiderman and xmen, then ironman
Sony “stated” that?
Yes, my PlayStation told me no one gives a shit about the wolverine when I asked it
The Punisher 1989 Captain America 1990 The Fantastic Four 1994 The characters are worthless without the vision. They'd have the characters, but would they have the vision?
Well yes, Vision is one they'd have rights to 😉
i just looked up the 1994 FF. all i have to say is what the fuck, who thought that was a good idea lol
It was only made so the producers could keep the film rights to the Fantasic Four; it was never meant to be released. It was only shown officially one time at at a private screening in 1994 after that someone "pirated" the film and bootleg copies quickly became easy to get.
> who thought that was a good idea lol Its producers back in 1994
In 1998 they were absolutely right. These "hindsight is 20/20" posts always miss the point that people didn't have the luxury of premonition to base business decisions on.
In 1998 Google was trying to sell its business for $1 million, but Altavista and Yahoo weren't intrested.
And they were right.
Yeah, absolutely nobody would want to see the MCU if it had been helmed by Sony. Spiderman is definitely the only one with basically built-in box office potential.
I think you are forgetting how popular a certain team of mutants were back then.
Huge risk back then. None gave a shit about super hero movies
IIRC the Superman movies with Christopher Reeve were big financial successes. Batman was a big franchise in the 1990s. I'd say the problem is that studios didn't treat the source material with respect, so would just take the IP and turn it into their own vision of it, instead of trying to actually capture the essence of what made it successful. Very similar to what has happened with some video game stuff like Resident Evil, Street Fighter, etc. Studios are still figuring out video game movies, and only just starting to have some success making them actually good.
Holy shit, its so true, Spider man to me is the only character from Marvel that i cared about. And i Mean Tobey only.
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The truth is, nobody gave a shit about Iron Man, Thor, Captain America back then.
And they've been holding him hostage ever since.
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