Why is the Marvel Cinematic Universe so successful?

At this point, most of the world has heard of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU for short) and many people have questioned why the MCU continues to thrive and bring in more and more people when other cinematic universes go belly up. When thinking and watching Marvel movies from their Phase One, movies coming out between Iron Man (2008) and The Avengers (2012), you notice something that is extremely different than the DC Extended Universe (DCEU) and Universals Darkness Universe — they weren’t planning for the future.

Christoper Nolan’s Batman Begins came out in 2005, showing everyone that superhero movies can be cool and Kevin Feige took this chance to produce the start of a new era of superhero movies. With a budget of 140 million, I don’t think anyone expected it to make 4 times that amount back with a total gross of 585.2 million dollars.

With Iron Man making that much money, more movies were confirmed to be on the way. Plus the super secret end credits scene that is now the new hit thing to do, had Nick Fury, director of S.H.I.E.L.D, the corporation that Agent Phil Coulson brings up throughout the movie, shows up and to talk about the Avengers initiative. Next movie to come out would be The Incredible Hulk with the Fight Club star, Edward Norton, released barely a month after Iron Man was. With a slightly bigger budget of 150 million, it didn’t even double that with a gross of 263.4 million dollars, showing that comic book movies haven’t been perfected just yet.

The most important thing to mention in both these movies is that they show the characters origins, they are origin movies with a sprinkle of what’s to come with the characters with the end credits scenes building up the hype of the Avengers initiative. This is where the DCEU and Dark Universe went backwards.

When The Avengers came out, nothing like it was seen before. Marvel took characters from 5 different movies and put them in one massive team up. With Joss Whedon in the director's chair and 220 million dollars to blow, when May 4, 2012 rolled around, people were lining up to see it. The opening weekend numbers alone nearly make up for the budget, making 207.5 million dollars, still in the top 3 for largest opening weekend grosses of all time. Overall the movies grossed 1.519 billion with a B dollars.

The DCEU was so anxious to get something out and on the market that we had only seen the origins of Superman when Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice came out. With an already formed Batman, an already dead Robin, and a “killed after one scene” Jimmy Olsen, it wasn’t looking too hot for the DCEU. Then Suicide Squad came out.

After people disliked the darkness of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice compared to the quippy new Spider-Man in the MCU, massive reshoots were filmed and, when watching the movie, you can tell what scenes are kept from the first, dark brooding movie and what scenes were added in so the audience would laugh. It made the movie uneven, like channel flipping between Moonlight and The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Thank goodness Wonder Woman came out, beating all expectations and being a pretty good movie. Then later that year, Justice League.

Justice League had some serious drama happening off camera. When Zack Snyder left the project to deal with a family matter, Joss Weadon was put on. Reshoots all throughout the movie started showing up to help match the two directors' ideas. With a 300 million dollars budget, it blew it by double, costing 600 million in the end. So far the movie has made 481 million, but it is still in theaters and has time to make the remaining money with DVD and digital sales.

There’s also the Dark Universe put out by Universal Studios. It was supposed to bring together monsters from the ages, starting with The Mummy. The main issue with the movie is that it spent too much time on exposition and trying to set up a universe than it did making sure the movie was good.

If I was to give any advice to the DCEU and Dark Universe, I would say slow down and take a step back. I know you feel rushed to making more movies and money, but stop and think can we be spending this money to bring them a quality movie? In that industry it’s all about making the audience happy.