5 ms·

Speaking of the 'how' (given the article is just a brief rundown of the box office numbers), Marvel made enough good movies in phase one (with Iron Man 1 & 2, C

by judge2020 5y ago

Speaking of the 'how' (given the article is just a brief rundown of the box office numbers), Marvel made enough good movies in phase one (with Iron Man 1 & 2, Captain America, The Avengers) for people to be intrigued about the idea of multiple characters coming together to fight a common enemy. Once you have people invested, getting them to watch the next movie or the next TV show is easier with the promise of familiar faces showing up to connect events together.

lbotos 5y ago
It was also a perfect storm of nostalgia, a gap in the market of "epic cinema" (LoTR / Harry Potter were ending), and a huge library of IP to run with.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  LOTR ended 5 years before Phase I.
  - thenewwazoo 5y ago
    The Hobbit?
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      The Hobbit was roughly contemporaneous to MCU Phase 2. (Its hard to view the LotR and Hobbit trilogies as single ongoing “thing” that the MCU came in at the end of when most of the time between the first LotR release and the last Hobbit release, including the time the MCU rose to prominence, is the time between the last LotR release and the first Hobbit release.)
- antupis 5y ago
  Generally companies/funds sleep on IP, I am rather surprised that there is not more companies that acquire IP that has strong fandom and start pumping new stuff across media landscape.
someperson 5y ago
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is like a TV show. Each episode may not be that great, but the series as a whole can be greater than the sum of its parts. And like any serialized TV series, you can't really skip episodes without missing key parts of the story, so once you commit to the show you're on the bandwagon. And given the success of the MCU, it's carved itself a powerful place in popular culture that won't disappear for a long time. Also, even the Marvel TV shows can be surprisingly high quality (I absolutely loved Loki and Wandavision, but hated Falcon and the Winter Soldier)
- afavour 5y ago
  > And like any serialized TV series, you can't really skip episodes without missing key parts of the story, so once you commit to the show you're on the bandwagon. There’s a flip side to that, though: once someone is off it’s a lot less likely they’ll jump back on (or even jump on in the first place) I count myself in that group. I’ve watched Marvel movies here and there (either Thor Ragnarok or Doctor Strange was the most recent) but at this point I’m turned off from watching more because I know there are numerous plot points I won’t get. And I don’t want to commit a week of my life to catching up. Now don’t get me wrong, clearly Marvel doesn’t need people like me to be an enormous success. But I think it’s a bit of a high wire act that other pretenders to the throne (DC etc) run the risk of failing at.
- autoliteInline 5y ago
  >And like any serialized TV series, I'm too old to care about movies much, but that's an interesting point. I wonder to what extent high-dollar bespoke TV series are hurting the movie business. Streaming and theatres at home were bound to change some habits, but would people prefer to watch a series now rather than a single work? Personally, I think it's a shame how much movies (a lot them at least) and video games appear to have merged in terms of pacing, volume, general aesthetic, but you can't expect things to always stay the same.
  - fedreserved 5y ago
    I'm at the point where shows like the sopranos I would love to watch in their entirety in theaters. I could see an era where shows have their weekly premiers in theaters in their later seasons after achieving a certain level of success.
hef19898 5y ago
Sometimes I have the impression to be alone in viewing Endgame as one of the worst Marvel films. The end fight is just boring (two groups charging each other...). Even worse is the whole writing, if Time Travel isn't the story it is just lazy. Endgame could have been such a dark film, after all half of all living things in the universe just deintegrated. Instead of exploring that beyond Thor, they resorted to a time travel hack that revisited half of the older films. And should have negated all films after Guardians 1, with Thanks being gone and dead.

lbotos 5y ago

It was also a perfect storm of nostalgia, a gap in the market of "epic cinema" (LoTR / Harry Potter were ending), and a huge library of IP to run with.

dragonwriter 5y ago
LOTR ended 5 years before Phase I.
- thenewwazoo 5y ago
  The Hobbit?
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    The Hobbit was roughly contemporaneous to MCU Phase 2. (Its hard to view the LotR and Hobbit trilogies as single ongoing “thing” that the MCU came in at the end of when most of the time between the first LotR release and the last Hobbit release, including the time the MCU rose to prominence, is the time between the last LotR release and the first Hobbit release.)
antupis 5y ago
Generally companies/funds sleep on IP, I am rather surprised that there is not more companies that acquire IP that has strong fandom and start pumping new stuff across media landscape.

someperson 5y ago

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is like a TV show. Each episode may not be that great, but the series as a whole can be greater than the sum of its parts. And like any serialized TV series, you can't really skip episodes without missing key parts of the story, so once you commit to the show you're on the bandwagon. And given the success of the MCU, it's carved itself a powerful place in popular culture that won't disappear for a long time. Also, even the Marvel TV shows can be surprisingly high quality (I absolutely loved Loki and Wandavision, but hated Falcon and the Winter Soldier)

afavour 5y ago
> And like any serialized TV series, you can't really skip episodes without missing key parts of the story, so once you commit to the show you're on the bandwagon. There’s a flip side to that, though: once someone is off it’s a lot less likely they’ll jump back on (or even jump on in the first place) I count myself in that group. I’ve watched Marvel movies here and there (either Thor Ragnarok or Doctor Strange was the most recent) but at this point I’m turned off from watching more because I know there are numerous plot points I won’t get. And I don’t want to commit a week of my life to catching up. Now don’t get me wrong, clearly Marvel doesn’t need people like me to be an enormous success. But I think it’s a bit of a high wire act that other pretenders to the throne (DC etc) run the risk of failing at.
autoliteInline 5y ago
>And like any serialized TV series, I'm too old to care about movies much, but that's an interesting point. I wonder to what extent high-dollar bespoke TV series are hurting the movie business. Streaming and theatres at home were bound to change some habits, but would people prefer to watch a series now rather than a single work? Personally, I think it's a shame how much movies (a lot them at least) and video games appear to have merged in terms of pacing, volume, general aesthetic, but you can't expect things to always stay the same.
- fedreserved 5y ago
  I'm at the point where shows like the sopranos I would love to watch in their entirety in theaters. I could see an era where shows have their weekly premiers in theaters in their later seasons after achieving a certain level of success.

hef19898 5y ago

Sometimes I have the impression to be alone in viewing Endgame as one of the worst Marvel films. The end fight is just boring (two groups charging each other...). Even worse is the whole writing, if Time Travel isn't the story it is just lazy. Endgame could have been such a dark film, after all half of all living things in the universe just deintegrated. Instead of exploring that beyond Thor, they resorted to a time travel hack that revisited half of the older films. And should have negated all films after Guardians 1, with Thanks being gone and dead.