THE FOUR KINGS OF COMIC BOOK MOVIES
A Strategic Editorial
INTRODUCTION Lately we have been living in a wonderland when it comes to Comic Book movie related news when one considers the recent release of the Amazing Spider-Man 2 trailer, X-Men Apocalypse announced, Gal Gadot as the new Wonder Woman and finally Drew Goddard scripting and show running the upcoming Netflix Daredevil series. All this information seems to not only allude to what we can expect in the future but also gives a lot away about the four main contenders in creating a shared cinematic universe featuring Comic Book characters. While I at one point mentioned that we might not be able to enjoy this for an eternity it is interesting that everything so far has been kicking quite some events into gear. I thought I would put my thoughts on the four existing competition and take a look on their decisions so far.
Currently the strongest competitor to Marvel Studios, simply due to the fact that the franchise has been around since the early 2000, is none other than Twentieth Century Fox. What I find most intriguing about their business plan is simply the fact that they are already building upon the success of an already strongly established series of films with the X-Men. The first film was released in the year of 2000 so giving them a total of eight years more time to build up the entire world. What was their main issue? Well, at the time it was more of a focus to build up the series of films that had quite a strong focus on Wolverine than the rest of the team. While never truly exploring a diverse world they have created one around the X-Men to keep a consistency in their films outside of the overall quality.
I kept talking about the X-Men franchise, which shows the biggest issue here, as they also own the Fantastic Four franchise. Their goal seems to be to combine these two groups for a grand crossover but recent reports seem to show issues bringing the other group to the silver screen. In actuality, many might still remember the original two films that weren’t to love by the fans for how their favorite characters were portrayed. The production has been going through some issues as well as the film is having issues truly picking up. Additionally, Bryan Singer had released information that we will be welcomed by the film X-Men Apocalypse in the year 2016 that shows we are still strongly focusing on Professor X and his gang.
While there is a great way to bind these two separate entities together due to Franklin Richards, being not only the child of Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman, but also ends up being a mutant. If done correctly this would be able to combine both elements for an interesting mash-up, yet with Apocalypse being announced in two years it makes one wonder how that will work. From an investment point of view they are throwing themselves too far into the mix by using the new and old cast members of the X-Men. My only true complaint with this strategy is rushing into a time travel film that may end up confusing the viewers more. I believe that Mark Millar has a great idea on where to take the Fox owned franchises but it might be quite a bumpy road and only the upcoming X-Men – Days of Future Past could tell us what we can expect from the X-Men. I believe they hold the biggest risks at the moment due to the already long established mythology and history of the show.
I will start with the company that probably has the weakest cards in building up an entire franchise as they only can build around one character, Spider-Man. While they have had a success with the character when Sam Raimi brought it to life around 2002. While recently rebooting it with The Amazing Spider-Man by replacing Tobey Maguire with Andrew Garfield they took the initiative to build up a mucher bigger franchise. While there are theories that it is actually part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as not only could we have seen OsCorp building in the Avengers, but also due to recent news stating the two companies are working quite closely together. While it would be difficult to justify this as there have been no true references to the wall crawler or the events from the first film, especially because New York was apart of the giant invasion and quite difficult to avoid people noticing the bio-terrorist in the shape of a giant lizard. Still, if this does indeed happen, and I am actually hoping for this to become reality, I am sure Marvel Studios will find a way to make it a part of their universe, but there is something else I would like to point out.
Sony is quite aware that they don’t have as many potential characters to use for their own feature films and won’t be able to build up towards an actual team-up film. They took that entire concept and figured that Spider-Man’s mythology does offer a different perspective. In the recent trailer they are already building up towards characters that won’t be fully explored yet in this film. Most notably is a scene where the mysterious man from the after-credit scene from the first film walks by what is quite obviously Doctor Octopuses tentacle arms and the Vulture’s wings. Interestingly is that we get a good look at them in the trailer for the film instead of teasing us while watching. The big question though is why teasing us with these potential villains? The answer is quite simple, building up towards the Sinister Six storyline where six of his most notorious enemies gather to defeat Peter Parker.
In my opinion, quite a brilliant move from Sony to not only make themselves stand out from the rest but also use the famous rogues gallery from Spidey to their advantage. Instead of a hero team-up we will see his enemies gang up on the poor guy, which all seemed to be pushed in some way by OsCorp with the mystery being on the introduction of the Green Goblin as their leader. I have to give the company respect for this decision when one considers that the third installment of the original trilogy had issues due to the oversaturation in villains. These movies seem to becoming more and more ensemble films but aren’t in the position to repeat what Marvel did as most of these characters can’t be introduced in their own films to establish the characters. Sony still made the interesting choice to go ahead and build up to the Sinister Six with quite some confidence as they already ordered two additional films following this one’s release in May 2014.
In the end one must ask themselve if this truly is a good business venture as they are throwing a lot of money and time to build up a franchise with only one released so far. Still when you consider the success of the first film it seems they trust the numbers and director enough to be able to build upon that success. One cannot deny the risk that is involved with these films but from all the companies rivaling with Marvel Studios they seem to be the one who have a better plan on how they will establish their franchise. Hopefully that it is no coincidence in the end and I would be interested to see if we actually will have Spidey joining the others in an Avenger film. Speaking of...
Before I get into the main competitor for Marvel Studios I would take a short while to look at the one who started it all. Naturally creating the cinematic universe and proving its success they have the most layered plan. Not only are they building up to a major “boss battle” that is coming with Thanos in the third installment. While I have mentioned in an earlier editorial that there may be a limit to how long we will be able to enjoy this world, but consider the way they are going around them I have the feeling they will try anything possible to prolong this fact. One must consider that each film is inspired by a different genre making each film a little different.
From an investment standpoint they took a gamble and it ended up paying off big time, but one would consider it quite dangerous going on from this point. There have been some problems with decisions Marvel Studios made with some of their most recent films, most notably Iron Man 3, but that topic has already been done to death. What I am talking about is what theme the film shave taken as since the introduction of The Dark Knight a lot of people wish for a much darker, adult-themed Superhero film while Marvel actually tries to cater to all ages thus making their films heavier in humor. While still seen as Action-Dramas one cannot deny that the latest Thor film kept people laughing throughout with some interesting jokes and characters to keep us entertained. While making the films for all ages have they chased away their initial target audience?
When taking these factors into consideration we have the already established franchises that have proven themselves in the box office numbers so far with next year probably being the most risky. Captain America – The First Avenger had the smallest box office splash from all franchises with a sequel arriving soon making it rather difficult to see in what direction they might be heading. Furthermore, in the same year we will also have the first new original franchise arriving with Guardians of the Galaxy, which might be their biggest risk so far with many unknown characters and further exploring the galactic aspect of the Marvel Universe.
One thing is clear though, they have a lot of plans moving forward that may last up until 2021 at least so it will be interesting to see how all of this develops. They are trying to prove themselves with a variety of business ventures, especially with the upcoming four TV-series to be published together with Netflix, so they certainly are here to stay for quite some time. Even if some people are quite divided on the success of Agents of SHIELD, it still has left an imprint of the expansion of a cinematic universe into the television, so hopefully we could explore this aspect more with the Netflix deal and another supposed ABC Studios project.
Finally, the biggest competitor for Marvel is the one with the widest range on characters to choose from, which is none other than Warner Bros. Entertainment and DC Comics. While they had already produced a successful trilogy with Christopher Nolan they had the issue of its hyperrealism would not have meshed together with the rest of the DC characters. The only option they had was to reboot the entire franchise and start over to slowly build up their entire universe so that audiences could get use to this world. Additionally, to not be easily mistaken with Marvel they create a much darker theme that tailors to the target audience that loved the Dark Knight Trilogy. While it sounds great in theory it has some issues at the moment. While the new incarnation of Superman with Man of Steel has been loved, myself included there are some issues.
While Agents of SHIELD expanded on the universe after it was already created DC already has a successful show with Arrow running on television at the moment. There has been no word if it will become a part of the DCCU or is simply a different universe all together. While this is just a small issue in the overall plan it is more of how they plan on creating the universe. At first they had a great concept when bringing in Batman through a Batman vs. Superman film as the sequel to Man of Steel. This way we could renew the character in a new form due to the last interpretation only was released a few years back it could confuse viewers.
With recent reports we also have Wonder Woman joining as Gal Gadot takes over the role. Ignoring any feelings for the choice of actress there is a bigger issue at hands as many believing the Flash would appear as well. While it was originally going to be a film featuring two major players for the upcoming Justice League film it seems they are turning it into the unofficial version of it. Overcrowding a film with heroes and villains will always bring considerable risks, as not only could it end up destroying the film as a whole but also confuse the general audience. Marvel’s plan was a bit structured by introducing the main players in individual films to allow their growth as characters to avoid the main issue of overcrowding. I will point out that some characters in the Avengers didn’t get an entire treatment they deserved, most notably Hawkeye, who alongside Bruce Banner seems left behind in the second phase. Each cinematic universe will be faced with a variant degree of different problems and hopefully Warner Bros. will slow them down before they create more than they already need. Building up a universe takes time and should also give us enough time to know these characters can truly live in the same world, especially when one considers the difference between Batman and Superman.
CONCLUSION Will each company truly end up succeeding in what they are planning? While some are making some considerable actions to fully establish themselves against the competition others are smart by using established successes to evolve. Sony and Warner Bros. both are following a similar plan by trying to rush into the competition, which works better for the former due to the limitations they possess when it comes to characters. On the other hand, the latter has much more playing field on how to expand their universe and allow the franchise to last for quite a long time. While Marvel has created the cinematic universe concept, Fox on the other side has already had a lot of time to establish their franchise. Due to the prequel they created though they are facing another issue that could very well make it collapse, as the upcoming film will have the responsibility to fill that void of confusion. Still, Marvel in the end has already built up a long-term plan that still gives them quite an advantage. In the end, there is no true winner in the long run as there are still quite some uncertainties in the future. I believe that 2014 – 2015 will be the deciding years for how well each cinematic universe will do and how well their plans will continue. While I believe Marvel Studios has the upper hand for quite some time, I am rather curious if Warner Bros. can prove themselves with their upcoming film as many aren’t quite satisfied with their recent casting updates. One could also say that people are starting to have issues with the MCU as well due to recent releases, but they pretty much just started their second phase that will always have an issue coming out of the blockbuster The Avengers. I believe Sony will be probably be more of a partner in this with Marvel Studios due to their close relationship and a pretty interesting twist on the entire concept.
So, who do you think will truly prove themselves? Was there anything I have missed? What cinematic universe are you most looking forward to? Comment and discuss below! Want to see more poster analysis, reviews or editorials? Then check out my blog The Archive!
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