Second Assignment 1

Second Writing Assignment

Joao Baylon

Synthesis Research and Writing: WRT-109-E1

Instructor: Lamont Rouse

11/29/22
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“There was an idea: To bring together a group of remarkable people to see if they could

become something more.” These are the words that would light the fire of the leading juggernaut

of entertainment for the last decade and a half. At this point, Marvel Studios is almost

synonymous with Hollywood. Many people nowadays can’t remember a time when the likes of

Iron Man, Captain Marvel, and Black Panther didn’t regularly grace the silver screen. Though

this wasn’t always the case, as not that long ago Marvel was not much more than a struggling

comic brand. General audiences didn’t know that much about the larger Marvel Universe.

However, through a carefully crafted plan, Marvel rose like a phoenix from the depths of near

bankruptcy and bolted into the pop culture stratosphere. And the impact of their endeavors

changed the film industry forever.

Marvel had many hurdles to overcome if they were to make their mark. The comic

company was truly struggling throughout the 1990s, to the point that they were risking

bankruptcy. To try and recoup some cash, they sold off the film rights to multiple characters and

franchises movie studios deemed marketable. Daredevil, the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four, as

well as any characters adjacent to those franchises created prior and onward, such as Elektra,

Silver Surfer, Doctor Doom, and Deadpool, were sold to 20th Century Fox; The Punisher was

pawned off to LionsGate; Blade, who would end up being the first of these sold off characters to

receive their own feature film, was sold to New Line Cinema; The Incredible Hulk and Namor

the Submariner were given to Universal Studios; and finally, Ghost Rider and, more importantly,

Spider-Man and any Spidey adjacent characters created before and since then (Morbius, Venom,

Miles Morales, etc.) were sold off to Sony Pictures, who still own the rights to this day, though

the Ghost Rider rights have since gone back to Marvel. At the time, Marvel had no real interest
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in making their own films, rather splitting the profits of films made by other studios. That all

changed, however, after the successes of the likes of Blade (1998), X-Men (2000), and especially

Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man (2002). Marvel got the wake up call they desperately needed. And so,

in 2007, under the guidance of one Kevin Feige, Iron Man went into production. It wasn’t

smooth sailing from there, though. The film had a lot going against it at the time: the character

wasn’t exactly a household name, the Marvel brand had lost its Hollywood luster over the years

due to increasingly mediocre films, and the film’s star, Robert Downey Jr., was very

controversial at the time. Yet despite all of this, the MCU truly came out swinging from the start,

as critics and audiences around the globe praised Iron Man upon its release in 2008, calling it a

refreshing take on the traditional origin story. Of course, as we all know now, things would only

go up from here.

Iron Man wasn’t just a one and done movie. Rather, it was the first part of a carefully

crafted plan put together by the aforementioned Kevin Feige, the head of Marvel Studios. This

plan was to slowly, but surely, plant the seeds of a more connected world throughout more films,

which included 2008’s The Incredible Hulk, 2010’s Iron Man 2, and 2011’s Thor and Captain

America: The First Avenger. Throughout these movies, audiences began to catch on that these

were all connected, displayed greatest by the thread that sewed these stories together: Samuel L.

Jackson’s Nick Fury character, who constantly referenced the putting together of a team. And, in

May of 2012, audiences would finally get to see the fruits of Fury’s, and to a greater extent,

Kevin Feige’s labor as The Avengers released, becoming a worldwide box office record setter.

This movie brought together the six heroes of all the movies that came before to form what is

now one of cinema's most iconic ensembles: Iron Man, played by Robert Downey Jr.; Captain
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America, performed by Chris Evans; Thor, portrayed by Chris Hemwsowrth; Mark Ruffalo

playing Bruce Banner and his alter ego, the Hulk; Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow played

by Scarlett Johansson; and last but not least, Clint Barton, AKA Hawkeye portrayed by Jeremy

Renner. These six protagonists came together to stop Thor’s evil brother, Loki (played by Tom

Hiddleston), from taking over the Earth. Viewers around the globe were enthralled by their true

first taste at what this cinematic universe had to offer, with an enticing promise of more to come.

Coincidentally, around this time is also when the acquisition of Marvel by the Walt Disney

Company, first announced in 2009, finally became official, thus financial limitations were no

longer a concern going forward. All these factors combined led to more creative endeavors, such

as 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy. Thus, over the

span of almost a decade, Marvel had grown an unwavering audience who would come to see

what the next part in this ever evolving story would be.

It seemed like nothing could stop the bullet train that was the Marvel Cinematic

Universe. Everything was going right for them: slowly but surely, they were reacquiring the

rights to all the characters they had sold; their biggest possible competitor, DC Comics’ attempt

at a cinematic universe had flopped; they had even struck a deal with Sony to include arguably

their most popular comic character, Spider-Man, in the MCU. And, of course, their movies were

nonstop hit after hit, with the likes of 2016’s Doctor Strange and Captain America: Civil War,

2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming and Thor: Ragnarok, and 2018’s Black Panther. After years of

buildup, however, the saga that started all the way back in 2008 was nearing its end. Announced

in October of 2014, Avengers: Infinity War Part I and Avengers: Infinity War Part II, later

renamed to Avengers: Endgame, promised a crossover of epic proportions while also concluding
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the current story arc that the movies had been building up until this point. They would see the

Avengers, alongside newer heroes such as Doctor Strange, Black Panther, Captain Marvel,

Spider-Man, and the Guardians of the Galaxy, try and stop the Mad Titan Thanos (played by Josh

Brolin) from collecting the six Infinity Stones in order to wipe out half of all life in the universe.

Infinity War and Endgame were released in 2018 and 2019 respectively to unprecedented

acclaim. The linchpin films of the MCU were both massive successes, with Avengers Endgame

even going on to become the highest grossing film ever, albeit only for a brief period of time.

However, Marvel Studios wasn’t only succeeding on the movie front. Also in 2019, after years of

back and forth negotiations, Disney had finally acquired 20th Century Fox. This meant that

Marvel had finally gotten back the largest chunk of characters they had lost all those years ago,

including the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, Deadpool, and many more. Since then, Marvel has

gone on to release more successful films, such as 2021’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten

Rings, as well as starting to make shows for the streaming platform Disney+, such as 2022’s

Moon Knight. On top of all that, they have announced even more projects in the works, such as a

new Fantastic Four film, a third installment of the Deadpool franchise, and even two brand new

Avengers movies. Although the story that began all those years ago with Iron Man had finally

come to a close, the future of the MCU has never looked brighter.

With many projects announced and much more in the pipeline, the Marvel train isn’t

stopping any time in the near future. Of course, not every single move of theirs is a sure fire

success. They e had many missteps along the way, even recently. However, the fact that

audiences still stick around and have faith is a testament to the achievement that Marvel has

accomplished. They’ve managed to go from a near defunct company that focused on a niche
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corner of entertainment to the dominant force of pop culture around the world. fMarvel has

forever changed the face of entertainment, and one thing is for sure: they aren’t going away

anytime soon.