Over the past decade, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has grown to become one of the most successful box office movie brands ever. Under the vision of Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, the MCU films have grossed over $17.5 billion at the global box office.
Superhero fatigue? Feige doesn't want to hear that kind of talk.
“Not only has there not been the quote-unquote superhero fatigue that people have been asking me about since years before ‘Iron Man,’ but here we are having our biggest year ever,” Feige told Variety. “Our instincts have always guided us, and the successes have always just encouraged us to keep following those instincts.”
Marvel Studios is coming off their best year ever at the box office. Looking to build on the nearly $3.5 billion the studio hauled in for 2018, thanks in large part to Black Panther ($1.3B) and Avengers: Infinity War ($2B), Marvel has an incredibly powerful lineup slated for 2019.
It kicks off with Captain Marvel on March 8. This will be the first Marvel Studios film to feature a female superhero front-and-center in her own starring role. Following Captain Marvel, we have Avengers: Endgame, the highly anticipated sequel to Avengers: Infinity War. In summer, we'll have Spider-Man: Far From Home, a sequel to 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming which brought the web-slinger back to the MCU (though technically Marvel Studios won't profit from the box office results as Sony still retains the rights).
In any case, there's a very good chance that 2019 could top 2018's impressive box office numbers and Feige credits the studio's success to careful planning and anticipating the desire for diversity and representation on the big screen.
“We knew that giving people who hadn’t had the chance to, A, make these kinds of films or, B, see themselves up on that screen reflecting these kinds of films was important, and was the future,” Feige says. “And look what happens when people have stories to tell and they don’t always get to tell those stories? Give them the budget, give them the canvas, and they’ll paint something amazing.”
Feige went on to say that the goal when he assumed his role at Marvel Studios was to "replicate the experience of reading a comic book for filmgoers" and "expand the definition of what a quote-unquote Marvel movie can be" But more important than all of that, he wants the films to deliver "on the promise of something that is going to bring you into the movie theater, but then giving you much more than you than you thought you were going to get.”