I’m sitting here with my coffee, watching Moon Knight and I realized, I wasn’t always the biggest Marvel fan. I always liked them more than DC, but when it came to the movies, before Iron Man I was skeptical. Even with the praise that Iron Man got, I almost waited until it hit DVD actually watch it. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is what it became known as and it got huge after Iron Man. I don’t think anyone expected it to turn into this huge powerhouse of entertainment that it has become, especially when it was essentially an indie studio making these movies before Disney bought all of Marvel.
The Rumors of a Connected Universe
I remember being on MySpace before Iron Man came out, while it was still being filmed and someone claimed that Samuel L Jackson was on set and the movie was going to be the start to something never seen before. Of course, that turned into a series of interconnected movies and eventually shows. After The Incredible Hulk confirmed an connected universe, there were rumors that Marvel would be pulling in characters like Spider-Man and X-Men to make all movies connected. Of course at the time nothing came to be, but later it was confirmed that these rumors had a bit of truth. In recent years, it’s come to light that they wanted Fox’s X-Men and Sony’s Spider-Man to be part of the universe, but opted to keep control to themselves. It’s probably a good thing they did though, with both X-Men and Spider-Man being rebooted.
Of course years later Marvel has the rights to the X-Men back. They have a deal with Sony to use Spider-Man, which it sounds like Jon Watts might even be back to direct the fourth Spider-Man movie. He recently left production on the Fantastic 4 movie and Sony said they expect him to return to direct the fourth movie in their franchise.
Marvel Cinematic Universe – The Present
It’s no doubt that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has become the biggest franchise of all time at this point. What started as a singular story of a man who covers himself in armor to protect himself and the world has turned into numerous heroes, a multiverse, and after-lifes. It has taken over movies, television, and streaming, though some argue that Disney+ is the first time that the MCU does television.
Now they may have a point, there was shows like Agents of SHIELD and the Runaways, but the movies never actually touched on the TV side of things. With Age of Ultron, there was a setup of the helicarrier on Agents of SHIELD and Fury mentioned borrowing it from a friend, but that was it. Even though multiple stars showed up on the show, it still wasn’t considered canon. When Joss Whedon had nothing to do with Marvel anymore the references basically stopped. Thanos was mentioned during a later season. After that season it was basically a completely separate thing. The last season dealt with time travel and the multiverse, so it’s possible it could be brought up again at some point.
The closest thing we got to the movies mentioning any show prior to Disney+ was Jarvis in Avengers Endgame and Charlie Cox in Spider-Man No Way Home. No Way Home completely changed the game when it brought in both previous Spider-Mans, so at this point the door is open to having anyone and everyone back. It’s no longer the Marvel Cinematic Universe though, it’s more the Marvel Multiverse. The Disney+ shows are very much canon to the MCU, they mention the events of WandaVision in the trailer for the next Dr. Strange movie.
Marvel Cinematic Universe – The Future
Sony has their own multiverse going on. Venom and Morbius are set in one universe, with the Vulture crossing over in the latter’s movie. It’s possible that at some point we see an Amazing Spider-Man 3 or a Spider-Man 4 as well. With the multiverse, pretty much anything and everything is possible. It’s weird, Marvel is expanding their multiverse and saying that all these previous movies happened, they are in their own universe and the actors may change or not. DC on the other hand, sounds like they are streamlining one universe.
The future is certainly looking weird for both DC and Marvel, but fans of both should be happy. There is a lot of content coming out for both, it sounds like they both have a plan to continue making good content, and with streaming services, they can make long term weekly content connected to it all, like Peacemaker on HBO Max and Moon Knight on Disney+.
Marvel Cinematic Universe – Lessons
I was never much of a DC fan admittedly. The comics especially. I’ve watched almost all of the movies, but never went out of my way to watch it. The Arrowverse is what got me really interested in them though. That has been hit or miss, admittedly, but with HBO Max’s Peacemaker and Suicide Squad, as well as the Batman, it looks like they may be ready to take some notes from Marvel and streamline their stuff. It would be great if Marvel took some notes from their own Netflix shows and Peacemaker and allowed some more adult geared content. Moon Knight is pretty great, don’t get me wrong, but it was no where near as brutal as Daredevil.
Deadpool 3 is coming and that may change things. They said it will be the first R-rated movie produced by Marvel Studios, the previous 2 were made by Fox. It’s supposedly the only R-rated movie that they’re working on, but with the success of the first two as well as how well received Peacemaker was, I imagine that may change. I hope that’s the case.
Marvel Cinematic Universe – Fan
I started this by saying I was skeptical with Iron Man. That is true, but now I, and probably a lot more people who never thought they’d say it, am a fan of the Marvel movies. I didn’t expect a cinematic universe to ever happen and I certainly didn’t expect it to work if it did. They tried in the past with things like Freddy vs Jason, but that took years to make and even that was a one and done crossover. I can’t wait to see what is going to happen in the MCU, but I’m sure whatever it is, I will be entertained.
