By Dan Edwards - It's now cool to like comic book movies again, but how has Marvel evolved to create films such as The Avengers and what makes it work so well?
By Dan Edwards
@iEddiez94
It's now cool to like comic book movies again, but how has Marvel evolved to create films such as The Avengers and what makes it work so well?
Back in 1944 when Marvel released a Captain America film I highly doubt that they thought in 2011 they would remodel the Captain America origin story and create one of the highest grossing films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Lets start at the beginning. Marvel have not always produced and made their own films. The licenses to characters and stories have been sold to companies such as 20th Century Fox, Universal Studios, Columbia, SONY and Lionsgate. This allowed Marvel to let each studio produce their own version of a story.
Blade (1998 - New Line Cinema) bloomed into a successful vampire based trilogy staring Wesley Snipes. This is not the film series that most people think of when you asking them "list a Marvel Film Series."
Fast forward two years and we are introduced to the world of the X-Men. This franchise was taken on by 20th Century Fox and still remains with that studio today. This franchise happens to be one of my favourites. It brought Wolverine to the big screen who is the only X-Man to feature in all of the films that followed. This also spawns several origin stories (Origins:Wolverine/First Class) and these are only set to continue with the announced of Deadpool in late 2014. Bryan Signer (Director of X-Men,X2, Days of Future Past) started this journey off and is set to continue the story in 2016 with X-Men Apocalypse. I wont go into every Marvel film as there are many. I will focus on the Avengers series as this is probably the most interlocking franchise in film history.
Fast Forward to 2008 when Phase One was initiated by Marvel Studios. The first release was Iron Man. We saw RDJnr take to the role like a duck to water. His charisma and cheeky personality made him a staple character in the soon to be created Avengers Universe. Also in '08 Marvel tried to reboot The Incredible Hulk with a new lead. This once again didn't make it like they hoped but it did remind us that Hulk was a character that was needed for the Avengers. Following the success of Iron Man, 2010 and 2011 saw the release of Iron Man 2 and Thor (another avenger). It was also the year that Chris Evans who had previously played the Human Torch (Fantastic 4) wore the star spangled shield as Captain America: The First Avenger. This was the last piece in the puzzle for the Avengers to Assemble.
Between the introduction of Cap and the Avengers, Disney had bought Marvel Studios for a whopping $4 Billion. This now meant that the budgets for the films could be so much more than they had previously been and all the characters were now under one umbrella. The Avengers was a hit in 2012. It sparked a phenomenon in the comic book movie world and everyone wanted more. It also shot the actors to even high stardom. This concluded Phase One.
Phase Two would see sequels to Iron Man, Thor and Captain America. It also brought us the renegades of The Guardians Of The Galaxy. To date, Marvels highest grossing film. That is the latest film of Phase Two to have been released. It will conclude with Avengers: Age of Ultron and Ant Man later in 2015. Phase Three will commence in 2016 and conclude in 2019.
The question still remains, How has Marvel managed to make comics cool again? I personally think that the overwhelming production scale of these films and the state of the art effects that they utilise to create the pages on the big screen. It also helps that they have cast strong actors for the large roles. Samuel L. Jackson, Chris Evans and Chris Pratt to name but a few. Marvel will only grow in popularity and I hope the films only continue to get better. Marvel announced that Spider-Man (owned by SONY) would be joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe but they have not said when he will be making his first outing under the Marvel name. This also begs the question, will Marvel start to buy off the other characters that they have leant out over the years? Lets hope they do!