How did Marvel pull the MCU out of their ass?

[Insideout Ink Demon]

As far as I know, it was Iron Man that started it all. Before that, it's my understanding that Marvel never really made that good movies. So how did they end up as the biggest movie producers out there today? Asides from having amazing movies of course. Iron Man came out 7 years ago, and in that time they have made 8 movies that were all incredibly successful. Did they change their entire movie staff or something? Or did they pour more money into the movie department? From what I heard Marvel is pretty stingy. What I really want to know was how long they had planned for the MCU. I mean, they had no idea how successful their movies would be, what if Iron Man fell flat?

before MCU, most marvel films were made by other companies who had bought the rights (this is why you wont see Xmen in the MCU, Fox has their rights tied up) and not by Marvel themselves.
Movie Bob prob has a few video's on this, but essentially, Marvel took out a big loan to make a 5 (?) shared universe films (because geeks love shared universes) cherry picked from different Marvel story lines and communities, took family friendly plots and went with what I would call an 80's style family adventure movie plot for their movies. Some risks with the fantastic comic elements, some safe bets with the plots and tropes.

Now Disney own them, and they are pumping money into this golden goose to get it fatter n fatter, and reaping a fortune.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

... and access to all the special effects technology available to films. That is another key component which has contributed to the success of comic book and fantasy films. Special effect technology has progressed enough that they are no longer bogged down by the campiness of their own special effects.

I'm gonna quote this part for truth. I think it might've been MovieBob who suggested it in a review, but the SFX are a major factor in the current crop of "comic book movies" able to be as good and convincing as they are.

The original Incredible Hulk TV show, for example, you actually had to have Lou Ferrigno (champion bodybuilder) painted green. Older action movies you needed actors like Sly and Arnie who actually had the strength and physique to convincingly be bad-arses, or actors like Van Damme/Jackie Chan/Jet Li who are actually martial arts experts. Now, thanks to SFX, you can have Scarlett Johansson, Milla Jovovich, Chris Evans et all be bad-arses convincingly. The Avengers movie Hulk wouldn't have been possible two decades ago. SFX mean we can have things like Spiderman 2 and Avengers, acted in by regular schmoes and have it convincing.

Comic books also happen to translate well to the screen. The imagery, colour, tone and aesthetic can be even more impressive live-action than on a page and having an animated, living, breathing human play the part makes it much more interesting for people who otherwise wouldn't be interested. We also get to see all the frames in between two panels on a page, we hear the sounds rather than read onomatopoetic bubbles.

For the MCU in particular, having continuity also helped. By giving us multiple movies set in a shared, overlapping universe they created something larger than the individual parts. I think RDJ as Iron Man was also a brilliant fluke that paid dividends. It's no wonder they made him the highest paid actor ever to keep him on beyond his original contract. I think it'll be interesting to see how the MCU evolves once actors like Evans, RDJ and Hemsworth no longer wish to continue their parts. Will the next batch (Dr. Strange, Black Panther, etc) be as popular? What will happen to the characters? It's anyone's guess right now but we're still a couple of years away from it mattering.

 

[MonsterCrit]

The answer. They didn't pull it out of their asses. I think it was actually the Incredible Hulk that kicked it off. FOllowed by Iron Man.

Actually Iron Man came out before Incredible Hulk.

My bad... but the point still stands. Marvel was willing to tank a few bad or risky movies for the payoff.

 

[Thorn14]

Attractive Male Leads and not being afraid of your comic book movie actually looking like a colorful comic?

 

[Ieyke]

Well they wanted to stop some major crimes so...
Sorry. Always wanted to do that joke/observation.

What Veylon said.

One deciding factor was definitely definitely the attention paid to what elements of each major hero would make a compelling story. Tony starts out as the kind of rich irresponsible corporate jerk that is made the villain in so many movies and put him through a journey into accepting the wrongs his company has done and turning it into a force for good. With Thor they went full-blown Hamlet, and instead of rushing through Captain America's backstory so he could appear in the modern world they made the entire first movie about it, showing how he became a legend in the war.

Haven't seen Incredible Hulk, but with that I think they were just trying to make one much better than the previous effort at making a Hulk movie. Regardless it was probably the least well-received since they haven't tried making any sequels to it. The same would have happened if any of the others had been bad. Thankfully they weren't.

The Incredible Hulk is actually better than Thor.
I think the reason it's not as well received is because it's pretty much dead serious.
Iron Man did humor, Hulk didn't, Iron Man 2 did. I think Marvel decided humor was such a huge factor that basically all their movies from then on were at least partially funny.
The Winter Soldier comes the closest to being as serious as The Incredible Hulk, but it's still funny.

But The Incredible Hulk is the story of a man being hunted, hiding from the world, protecting the world and the people he cares about from himself, battling the monster within for control, and the story of the military forces who are willing to go to ruthless extremes to hunt him down.
Not a lot of space for lulz.
*shrug*