Many a gallon of digital ink has been spilled over the proliferation of superhero movies. Many complain of their dominance, and the fear that medium-budget "serious, adult" movies are being forced to take a back seat in favor of the latest effects-extravaganza.
I suppose you could trace the current (though now 2-decade-plus) surge in the genre back to 2000's X-Men, followed shortly by Sam Raimi's Spider-Man and then Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins. Obviously, though, the real game-changer was Jon Favreau's Iron Man in 2008, which was the first movie out of Marvel Studios and launched the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe.
I don't begrudge those who don't like these movies. If you're not into big action-set-pieces, fantastical soft sci-fi (that has, in some films, become true fantasy) and that particular ratio of quippiness to action, I get it. I'll also allow that some of the character moments aren't allowed to hit as hard given the necessities of keeping the franchise going - Captain America: Civil War, climaxes with a devastating falling-out between Steve Roger and Tony Stark, but ends with a promise from Rogers to Stark that when push comes to shove, he'll be there to back him up, undercutting, a bit, the gravity of the film.
But the MCU just kind of works, though, doesn't it? It's the biggest film franchise in history and puts butts in seats (less so in this plague time) and tends to get pretty good reviews from critics as well (though the folks who are sick of these movies might also complain that critics have given them too easy a pass.)
There have certainly been crossovers before, and spin-offs, but I can't name any other film project that was structured quite like the MCU before it: multiple series within a broader franchise that take place within the same continuity even if the stories don't always overlap. The Guardians of the Galaxy encountering Ego the Living Planet doesn't have anything to do with Killmonger's desire to turn Wakanda into a colonial power in order to punish the Western world for doing just that centuries earlier, but the two do happen within the same universe, and that's what allows Rocket Raccoon to fight off Thanos' forces when they attack Wakanda.
The Shard Universe is something others have tried to do, but what's shocking is that they've basically all met with at best mixed results. DC, which doesn't have its own studio but does all their films through Warner Brothers, were the obvious people to try to replicate this. After all, just as Tony Stark and Steve Rogers team up occasionally, Superman and Batman often do likewise in the comics.
But while DC has made enough money with its DCEU to keep making them, critics have been much less positive on the results. If I recall correctly, the DC movies are Man of Steel, Batman vs. Superman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, Justice League, Shazam, Suicide Squad, Birds of Prey, Wonderwoman 1984, and kind of Joker.
Of these, I think the first Wonder Woman was well-received, and Birds of Prey I heard was decent, and Shazam was fun (full disclosure, it's the only one I've seen.)
Tonally, though, the movies are all over the place. Initially, the tone was set by Zack Snyder, whose sensibilities have always been "dark and gritty" first and foremost.
Perhaps we should blame Christopher Nolan, whose dark-and-gritty Batman movies were, at the time, a refreshing change of pace after the high-camp of the 90s Joel Schumacher ones.
Now, to be frank, my armchair quarterback analysis of what happened with the DC movies is that decisions were made by businesspeople rather than creatives. Consider the following:
The MCU had four movies to establish its headlining Avengers: Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America: the First Avenger, as well as Iron Man II, before The Avengers came out. And yes, among these, three were not great (though Thor I'll concede established that Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston were both good in the roles even if the movie itself wasn't great. The Incredible Hulk is a bit of a slog while Iron Man II was a little all over the place tonally - though at least we got Don Cheadle in that one as Rhodey, who I like better in the role.)
Still, we had a full movie, and in one case two, to establish who these characters were before we threw them together. We established Tony Stark's core of believing that as long as he's the smartest guy in the room, he's invincible. We've established Steve Rogers' core of uncompromising ethics and morals. We've established Thor's hubristic might. And what worked so well about the Avengers was that the main conflict was less the invading CGI army, but the challenges of getting these larger-than-life figures to actually function together as a team.
This, by the way, is huge: the conflicts (at least in the best MCU movies) are centered on the characters as humans (or Asgardians, but you get it) as well as superheroes. That makes the individual movies mostly good (I think pretty much since Age of Ultron, I'd grade every movie in the franchise as a B or higher) but it also allows for character dynamics that really enrich the whole franchise.
Consider, for example, Steve Rogers' journey: he begins as a literal embodiment of idealism and heroism ("I don't like bullies,") and is pointed at the most unambiguously evil regime in modern human history. But when he discovers that Hydra more or less Operation Paperclipped its way into America, he lost faith that the structures and institutions he once served could actually be trusted. As such, when the Sokovia Accords are presented, he doesn't think they can trust the establishment to govern their operations.
On the flip side, Tony Stark begins as an egomaniac, and over the course of his movies and experience, he's learned that he can't simply go it alone, that he needs others to check his power and keep him doing the right thing. And so, he winds up embracing the restrictions that the Sokovia Accords would place on them. Both have grown, but in doing so, they've sort of grown past one another in different directions.
The DCEU's equivalent movie: Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice, was the second film in the franchise. We'd had one (polarizingly dark) Superman movie to at least get this version of Superman, but then no movie to establish this new version of Batman to see how a conflict might form between them. Marvel didn't put its superheroes against each other (at least in any serious way) until we'd already seen them team up and each had gotten at least two movies of their own to show how their journey brought them to that conflict.
Disney bought Marvel in 2009 - the first step in their campaign of global domination (they own 20th Century Fox now, which has interesting implications for the X-Men franchise and also for, you know, monopoly law) - and certainly, they've benefited tremendously from the success of the MCU.
What I think is fascinating, though, is that they haven't been as successful with the other enormous franchise they bought: Star Wars.
The Star Wars sequel trilogy has, I think, since Rise of Skywalker came out, been seen as something of a failure by fans and critics. Now, granted, the Star Wars fanbase is infamously unpleasable, but I think we can identify some serious flaws: The first movie, the Force Awakens, introduced some cool new characters, but put them through a retreaded plot. The Last Jedi, then, was extremely polarizing, as it deconstructed various aspects of the franchise. Rise of Skywalker, however, united fans because everyone kind of hated it - it abandoned the ambiguities of the second film and basically just gave us the same stuff over again (Since Star Trek Into Darkness, I've come to regard J J Abrams as a hack).
Disney has tried to branch out Star Wars as a broader cinematic universe, but to mixed success. Rogue One was a starkly bleak decidedly stand-alone war movie that was, on one hand, ballsy, but on the other hand, certainly did not expand the possibility of ongoing series with those characters. Solo, a Star Wars Story, on the other hand, was basically a parody of unnecessary prequels, seemingly answering every question you never had about Han Solo (for instance, I would have been satisfied if Solo was just his name, you know, from, like, his parents) while also setting up a separate series that never took shape.
Of course, unlike the DCEU or the Universal "Dark Universe" or any other of these attempts, this is also Disney. Now, yes, Disney's a huge company, but you'd think they could look to Marvel Studios and see how they managed to be so successful.
Here's my theory: Keven Feige. Now, that's not exactly a secret: he's been the one credited with the MCU's success, but I think there's another element at work here:
Consider Edgar Wright. Wright is one of my favorite directors - his "Blood and Cornetto" trilogy are three classic comedies, and Baby Driver, despite the revelations of depravities of certain members of its cast, is a fantastic work of intricate cinematic storytelling.
Famously, Edgar Wright wound up quitting Ant-Man over creative differences, and the film was given to a lesser-known director.
And while I'd love to be able to see what Ant-Man Edgar Wright might have made, I also sort of get it.
While The Avengers (Avengers Assemble in the UK) was a revelation, some of the biggest successes to follow it in the MCU have been directed by the Russo Brothers. Their background is in TV - they actually directed episodes of some of my favorite TV comedies: Arrested Development and Community. The point is, these are people who are good at stepping in to direct work that is someone else's creative baby.
Wright did do some TV, but it was Spaced, a series that he had creative control over.
I think what is odd, but also effective, with the MCU, is that this sort of series is a producer's medium.
Looking at Star Wars, The Force Awakens and Rise of Skywalker are clearly JJ Abrams movies, while the Last Jedi undeniably has Rian Johnson's stamp on it. Their conflict in vision of the franchise - Abrams wanting to simply re-make the movies he loved in his youth while Johnson wanting to reexamine the mythos of Star Wars from an adult perspective - gave the sequels their disjointed and inconsistent feel.
Indeed, much of my problem with Rise of Skywalker was not so much the choices that were made, but the choices that were unmade - if improv is all about "yes, and," Abrams' response to the Last Jedi was "no, but..." (I'm still really bummed that Rey had to be descended from some established character.)
Having a primary auteur at the center of your cinematic universe seems like a good first step, though we'll have to see if someone else can match Kevin Feige's skill at it.
Now, the MCU itself is in a weird transition period. With Tony Stark's and Steve Rogers' stories finished, not to mention the untimely death of Chadwick Boseman and thus his T'challa (they've announced that they will not simply re-cast him, meaning that Black Panther 2 will probably focus on the search for a worthy successor) there's a new question of who the story will focus on.
We don't even really know if there will be more Avengers movies, or if perhaps some other super-team will form. While WandaVision is giving us our first (wonderfully weird) look at a post-Endgame (well, post Spider-Man Far From Home) MCU, and presumably when the Black Widow movie actually gets to come out (wear your fucking masks, people! I mean, if not to save other peoples' lives, at least so we can see that goddamn movie in theaters!) we'll find out if Natasha is truly gone or if there will be some comic-book-fuckery that allows Black Widow to come back from her heroic sacrifice in Endgame.
Still, whatever the future holds, the 22-movie, 11-year project from Iron Man to Endgame is something unique in cinematic history, and one I think we'll be studying in the years to come.
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