Before the MCU turned into the overwhelmingly popular franchise that it is today, this particular series of movies had somewhat more humble beginnings. For a while, it was hard for any superhero movie to find success, as many failed to impress for various reasons. The most success any had seen before the MCU began was the Batman Begins series, the X-Men series, and Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man series, the only ones popular enough to keep making sequels.
With 30 movies already out in the MCU, and several more on the horizon, it seems like the franchise will never end, even after they’ve started to retire some of their original heroes. They’ve branched out into superhero TV series on Disney+ now too, bringing even more possibilities for their storytelling. Before they were under Disney’s control, however, Paramount helped bring the series to life, and brought some of the best movies along with it.
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Marvel Studios Never Thought the MCU Would See This Success
Paramount Pictures
Though the Marvel Comics were popular when comics were more widespread and read, the company was having trouble staying afloat in the new century. After seeing the moderate success Sony and Fox had with their characters, they thought they would give movies a try themselves with characters they still owned the full rights to. The plan was to use a couple of B and C-list heroes and hope they could gain enough interest to build to the team-up movie.
Iron Man and the Hulk were chosen as the first two heroes for Marvel to bring to life. Hulk was chosen as an A-list hero who had a recognizable name from his previous (and pretty popular) TV show, and Iron Man was someone they thought they could make extra money off of with toys. They didn’t think their success would happen the other way around. Iron Man was the first MCU movie and was an instant hit, bringing in much more money than the studio anticipated.
The movies set up something more, often referencing other aspects of different heroes that meant they were all one part of a larger universe. This was in preparation for The Avengers, which was the first movie distributed by Disney instead. By that point, they knew their success was something to keep pushing for and keep telling stories, as it could make them the money they were in need of. When they weren’t as focused on the big, overarching story, however, nor the wow factors like the Avengers: Endgame universe team-up, the movies simply focused on setting up the characters and their place in this universe turned out as some of the best, and maybe even most memorable.
Disney’s Involvement Means More Family Friendly Films
Though all movies in the MCU so far have been rated PG-13, even Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness and its horror themes were held back because Disney is in charge. If you look closer at the first and only four that came from Paramount, you’ll notice there are some things not really ever seen again in the MCU.
Obadiah Stane is one of the few people you witness smoking, as any Disney production PG-13 or lower will not have any kind of tobacco products to try to keep kids from mirroring their heroes and smoking themselves. There was a little more violence shown too, including the blood trail of a man getting torn to shreds by a propeller in Captain America: The First Avenger or Thor’s large gashes from the Destroyer in Thor.
Recently, Ryan Reynolds had to fight to keep Deadpool 3 R-rated after Disney bought Fox and received the rights to the Fox Marvel characters, proving that in general, Disney would prefer to keep things family friendly. It still works as far as the MCU goes, especially since there is an element of sci-fi and fantasy to these stories that sometimes brings a more whimsical look. However, after the first few movies tried to set an anchor in realism, bringing a war to life with Captain America, centering the entire plot of Iron Man 2 around the life of a dying man, they had to leave some of it behind.
Spoiler Culture Has Taken Off at the Expense of a Good Story
While it’s understandable that someone might want to know as little as possible before heading into a movie so that they can still experience the surprises, there’s a new degree of secrecy that has taken over Hollywood. Studios are investing so much energy into shocking reveals, that they’re trying anything to keep their projects top secret. They’ll announce them as untitled projects, try to keep the casting as secret as possible, and sometimes, especially in the case of Marvel, will keep as many details about the actual story hidden, leaving actors in the dark as much as they can.
Actor and comedian John Mulaney joked about being approached for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse like it was a set-up for a kidnapping on a Jimmy Kimmel episode, saying how he was left in the dark for a lot of the movie and didn’t really know what was going on besides the lines he was given. Tom Holland, known to accidentally spoil some movies in his interviews, was purposefully told the funeral scene in Avengers: Endgame was actually a wedding to avoid him spoiling it. Keeping everything in the dark like this means the actors might not be able to react an act in the same capacity to each other as they once did.
The internet has influenced a lot of movies lately too, including the latest Star Wars sequel series, which let toxic fans influence its writing, among other mistakes. Letting the internet take over the story, or trying to keep it from even guessing the story, brings in bad storytelling, broken plot lines, and even bad characterization of beloved characters. The time of the Marvel Paramount movies were merely simpler times, making for better stories.
