With the opening of "Thor: Ragnarok" this weekend, Disney’s Marvel Studios has accomplished an incredible feat: all 17 movies that have borne the Marvel moniker have opened at number one at the U.S. box office.
While this accomplishment likely comes as no surprise to the most ardent fans of the franchise, it’s a fact that bears consideration, given the protracted success of the Marvel movies. Marvel’s movies have grossed a combined $12.67 billion at the box office since the franchise opened with "Iron Man" in 2008. This includes three movies in the top 12 highest grossing films of all time: 2012’s "The Avengers" ($1.52 billion), 2015’s "Avengers: Age of Ultron" ($1.40 billion), and 2013’s "Iron Man 3"($1.21 billion).
The question that arises then is how Marvel reached this level of unparalleled success, and does it have the legs to keep going?
According to Thomas Schatz, a professor at the University of Texas, Marvel’s success is at least in part due to its adherence to the studio system seen during the “golden age” of Hollywood. This system includes a number of vital criteria, including a hands-on producer, an efficient production process, and an amalgamation of intellectual property.
Marvel Studios has all of these components. Led by an involved producer/president of the studio in Kevin Feige, a production process that has distilled the movies into a predated slate of release dates and three distinct “phases”, and an emphasis on the character and name of each superhero, not the star playing them, Marvel Studios has built itself as a machine that has taken the industry by storm, turning out multiple films every single year.
In conjunction with this, Marvel has also locked its actors into multi-film contracts, ensuring a continuity exists from film to film in performance and appearance. This continuity carries over to other aspects too. Not only do we know Robert Downey, Jr. will play Iron Man in every Iron Man movie, but we know what kind of flavor we’ll get from the movie as well.
Every Marvel movie has some combination of multiple, traditional, cinematic thematic elements: romance, adventure, comedy. But even within those commonalities, each Marvel movie is also able to explore and express a genre wholly departed from superheroes in and of themselves. From science fiction ("Guardians of the Galaxy") to espionage thriller ("Captain America: The Winter Soldier"), Marvel manages to maintain a formula without totally phoning in its pliability or creativity.
Suffice it to say, Marvel has stitched together a powerful framework that looks to compel them to even greater success for years to come. The only question that remains is one of market saturation.
When, if ever, will the general public grow tired of the increasingly large breadth of Marvel movies?
That day may be some time off yet, as there is little to no indication as to any perceptible downtick in Marvel’s revenues.
As movie-lovers continue to enjoy the third Thor installment and look beyond towards further things from Marvel, movie history also continues to keep track, testing that exact question of Marvel’s continued market feasibility.
