No one could predict how Marvel Studios' gamble on 2008's Iron Man would turn out. The company's most popular titles, X-Men and Spider-Man, were at Fox and Sony so the would-be studio was essentially building its proposed cinematic shared universe off of a character considered "B-List".
Six years later, Marvel releases Guardians of the Galaxy, featuring characters general audiences have zero knowledge of, breaking August records with a $90M+ opening weekend. At the time of writing this, the film has grossed $229M domestic and $425M worldwide. In six short years Marvel has become a bonafide trusted brand.
But the studio is not without its detractors, who often declare Marvel's movies are "for kids" or "action-comedies". Disparaging as these remarks may be, they're inaccurate. "Kids films" and "action comedies" don't gross $700M, $800M, $900M or $1 billion worldwide. Family films do. And Marvel Studios makes family films.
Are their movies perfect? No. I only really enjoyed four of the ten they've released - Iron Man, The Avengers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy. What I applaud is the model they put in place. The "Phases". Individual films or solo outings culminating in a huge team up. And that leads us to the point of this editorial.
I love the plan Marvel put into action for their shared universe but, to this day, it feels like something is missing. Something important. Something crucial to an endeavor such as this…Connectivity.
Kevin Feige and Co. can say what they want about Phases 1 and 2 so far but these films aren't as connected as Marvel would like people to believe.
At least not where it counts most, and that's in story. Here's an excerpt from a recent Feige interview with
Empire.
EMPIRE: How do you keep track of everything at Marvel? You said today that there’s no giant wallchart with string and post-it notes, so do you continually discuss things?
FEIGE: Pretty much. It is the way we’re structured. It is a relatively tight organization and all of us talk about everything. Then the various people all go off and handle their own movies. So there are people who are responsible for each individual movie but all of us are in conversation. There is handful of us, like myself and Louis D’Esposito and Alan Fine, that oversee all the movies.
Maybe there actually needs to be a chart set in place. A blueprint a think tank of writers can come back to mapping out a singular, spanning story. Look at Phase 1:
The five films leading up to The Avengers had little to do with each other, or worse, the actual Avengers film. Captain America: The First Avenger introduced the Tesseract and Thor introduced Loki. But outside of that, the rest of the films were good for introducing the characters but did little towards an overall story.
Think about the scene that ignited Marvel's post credit tradition. Director Nick Fury shows up at Tony Starks Malibu beach house. "I'm here to talk to you about the Avengers Initiative".
Who was going to make up this Avengers team? Cap was still on ice when Fury met with Stark. Thor was off planet, in Asgard. Banner was off the grid in Brazil.
Why form the team in the first place? And why now? Based on the events in First Avenger S.H.I.E.L.D had the Tesseract in their possession the last 70 years. In Thor, Loki didn't show any interest in or knowledge of the Tesseract until the post credits.
Looking back, it's apparent there wasn't a bigger picture in place. Maybe because no one knew if audiences would respond to Iron Man. Still, considering the way Marvel handled the subsequent Phase 1 films, I didn't get the impression connectivity was planned out in the event IM1 was a success.
A giant wall-chart with string and post-it notes would be ideal for building a shared cinematic universe. Because it takes more than Samuel L. Jackson appearances, name dropping and mid/post credit scenes to tie these films together.
"Well, what would you like to see?" I'm glad you asked.
Think of some of the biggest crossovers in comics. Stories like Crisis on Infinite Earths and Civil War. Each title in these crossovers were telling different parts of the same story. A much larger story that affected all of the DC or Marvel universe. Marvel Studios should adopt this mentality.
Going back to the wall-chart - Put one up for each Phase. At the top should be an Avengers film. Every film underneath should tie into it somehow, story wise. They should provide some type of insight into or help shape the next Avengers film. Let's use Phase 2 for example.
It looks like Jarvis will make the transition into Vision for The Avengers: Age of Ultron. So why not plant the seeds of his eventual transformation back in Iron Man 3? Build up to it throughout the movie until, finally, in the post credit, have Vision step out voiced by Paul Bettany.
Go even further - Ultron is the big bad in AoU so have events within IM3 lead to him becoming sentient. A mini origin story, if you will. The films in each Phase should contribute in some way to building the upcoming Avengers installment. They should be relevant.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier is the best comic book movie in years but cut the mid-credit scene and there's no AoU tie-in. Guardians of the Galaxy was tremendous fun but what does it have to do with AoU? If anything, based on rumors, Guardians should've kicked off Phase 3, if Thanos is in fact the villain in Avengers 3.
This would also help Marvel decide which new characters get their own movie.
Fans are asking for characters like Captain Marvel, Dr. Strange and Black Panther to get films. Yes, but only if their stories can contribute to the bigger one.
Once again, assuming Thanos is the villain in Avengers 3, Dr. Strange and Black Panther don't make a lot of sense. A Captain Marvel movie, however, does.
And with the introduction of the Nova Corp in Guardians, a Nova movie would, too.
Ideally, each Phase would be an epic. A grand cinematic version of a comic book crossover event. Full of references to other franchises and their story lines, tying them all together. Something like this...
Say, Stark has Jarvis call up a teammate, maybe Cap, who's actually in the middle of his own mission.
Turns out their missions are linked. Chris Evans wouldn't even have to show up on the Iron Man set for this.
Now imagine watching the Captain America film, released later, where we get that same scene but from Cap's end.
Simple things like this remind the audience these characters may have their own franchises but exist in the same universe.
IN CLOSING
These are just one fan's ideas to creating a cohesive, deliberate shared Marvel universe. The Blu-ray box sets for each Phase would be a complete story, from the first film to the Avengers film.
And it's not just Marvel. I'd propose the same ideas to Warner Bros. Especially them since they're just starting out. I may not be a fan of any of the choices the studio has made regarding their proposed DCCU but that doesn't mean they can't give audiences something Marvel hasn't so far.
How do you feel about Marvel Studios' shared universe? Do you think they could do better making them feel more shared? Do you think they've done a good job connecting their films? Let's hear your thoughts below. And, as always, thanks for reading!