Last night, I re-watched Iron Man, the first film in the march toward The Avengers. It was difficult to remember that before going to see Iron Man in the theater, there was no such thing as a “Marvel Cinematic Universe.”
Sure, there had recently been film trilogies for X-Men, Spider-man, and even Blade, but Iron Man was Iron Man, and that was that. The novelty of any comic film series was always which sidekicks, partners, or villains might make it into the short two-hour representation of decades of comics. X-Men always gave the best opportunity because of their large cast of characters. Little did we know…
After its initial premiere, there was a “buzz” around the internet that a short post-credits scene in Iron Man was worth staying in your seat to see. I’m not sure how many other movies have ever had meaningful post-credits footage, but the rumor seemed more than substantiated. Even four years later, and several films later, that scene still gave me goosebumps. Not only did it mention SHIELD and the Avengers, it had freaking Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury. This wasn’t the joker card foreshadowing to end Batman Begins, this was serious business with a character cast already. It was the first (public) indication that Marvel intended to make movies more than single-character or single-team arcs. That isn’t how comics work, why should the movies?
Ever since a run of relative flops in the comic book film genre (Elektra? Ghost Rider?), prognosticators have been calling for the bubble to pop. Surely, audiences wouldn’t continue putting $200M+ down to see heroes on the big screen. Right?
Was Marvel trying to head off this looming crash? Or, were they finally just in a position to retain their character rights as an independent studio and do things the right way? Probably both. The only real answer is that the launch of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been a huge success for Marvel. Maybe it is just prolonging the impending crash a few years, or maybe it is truly a repositioning of the genre, a rebirth even.
Maybe comic book characters don’t need to be re-imagined for broader consumption. Maybe audiences can handle some less obvious themes from a hero film. Maybe people will keep spending their hard-earned money to see a film series spanning several years. Maybe they just needed a better reason to do so.
A recent article from Gawker positioned The Avengers as a possible negative for the industry:
But after feasting on The Avengers and all its superheroes, is anyone going to care about a Green Lantern or even a Wolverine in quite the same way? Hey, I like Hugh Jackman, too, but he’s just one action hero. How can he compare with Iron Man and the Hulk and everybody else in the same movie? I’m scared that The Avengers will convince filmmakers that they’ve got to double- and triple-up their comic-book characters to get audiences to come.
It’s too easy to point at The Avengers and say they are successful for throwing a bunch of heroes up all at once. We’ve already had five X-Men films, some successful and some not. The difference between the good X-Men films and the bad X-Men films was the quality of the writing. The concern here should be quality not quantity. The team featured in The Avengers have already carried their own respective films. Elektra didn’t. Robin wouldn’t.
I think the line drawn in the sand by The Avengers on May 4 is that Marvel has proven that for fifty years they’ve had some incredible stories published by some amazing writers and artists. They don’t need Hollywood to “fix” their stories or their characters.
For decades, comics needed Hollywood. Now, Hollywood needs comics. Disney paid $4 billion for Marvel. Maybe we won’t ever see Tony Stark battle alcoholism or see Ant-man abuse his wife, but we can do a hell of a lot better than emo-Spidey playing the piano.
Screen Rant has a good summary of which Marvel properties are held by which studios.
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