the thing that is so fucking frustrating about this conversation is that we all agree that marvel movies aren’t the profound works of art that a lot of other people think they are
and yet we’re STILL talking about their success
like, we literally cannot have other conversations outside of marvel’s success even when we’re disparaging it
that’s how damaging marvel movies have been to film in general and to say that “it could have been anything” is completely glossing over the fact that the entire reason they were financially successful is because they pivoted from licensing films to other production studios to self-financing their own productions. they just consolidated!
and they’re continuing to consolidate! I don’t know how you’re able to divorce a consolidated company’s ability to leverage its own “brand loyalty” from the fact that they’re “just selling what people want”
One thing here is that I don’t think there’s much to talk about with the movies themselves. So the conversations surrounding them are either discussing their financial success and cultural dominance (whether you be lamenting or celebrating) or speculating about what plot lines are going to happen over the course of the next 12 films.
it’s not that 9/11 narrowed the narrative scope of stuff made after the event, it’s that it made people uninterested in stuff outside a narrative scope that didn’t involve justifying the wars after it or creating a fantasy in which we were in the right
But lets also not forget that when Iron Man came out, super hero movies were considered a risk. And ensemble superhero movies were like a deathwish. And buying Marvel out, was probably not even considered, by other studios. Disney saw the potential and they developed it into the box office bonanza it has become. Its not like Disney just stole everyone’s cookie. They made a hit. And then kept on hitting. And they’ve been able to keep hitting, because they invested in hitters, all-in.
The films have crazy box office numbers. That’s why they are successful.
Self financing has simply allowed them to have bigger budgets and still get similar amount of return, as if they were licensing out on a smaller total budget. The bigger budgets are in attempt to ensure similar numbers, again and again. Budgets so large, they are equal/nearly equal to the domestic box office of many films. But again, the reason they can do those budgets, is because the films are expected to have a huge return and indeed do bring that return.
This isn’t even remotely true. They just weren’t considered a cash cow to be continuously and vigorously milked for every last drop.
Raimi’s Spiderman trilogy wrapped up before Iron Man. Dark Knight came out the same year. Initial X-Men trilogy also wrapped up before Iron Man. All very successful movies.
and the idea that like, a hugely popular comic book character would be “risky” to make a movie out of is a story that marvel would love to continue to tell us because it allows them to talk themselves up as these mavericks and risk takers while making the safest possible aesthetic choices in basically every movie they’ve made since
the choice of iron man as the movie that really kicked off the mcu is probably the biggest risk they’ve taken with these movies yeah but also like, blade wasn’t popular either and those films did pretty well. yes iron man wasn’t really a super popular character until the movie came out but ppl still knew who he was (tho the gulf between “I recognize that guy’s name” and post-movie knowledge is admittedly huge.) that being said superhero movies were a proven success like 20 years before the MCU, toptube is just wrong here
Iron Man titles sold hundreds of thousands of copies right up until the late 90s/early 00s, when the comic speculation bubble collapsed and wiped out basically every single ongoing comic’s subscription base. By 2008 the flagship Iron Man title sold like 40k, which would place it as a mid-range performer in the Marvel stable.
I think it’s fair to say that he maybe wasn’t “hugely popular”, but he certainly had the name recognition. People knew who Iron Man ~was~. And that’s the most important part of a marketing campaign.
It also wasn’t really a risk to start with him in my opinion, for multiple reasons:
Founding member of the Avengers, which is the most popular team in Marvel’s roster and a consistent seller
Consistently appeared in Marvel spin-offs, particularly games like Marvel Ultimate Alliance or MvC2
Never had a film continuity, so no fans to disappoint (unlike Spiderman or X-Men)
Despite falling off in popularity in the years preceding his movie, was still relatively well-known
yeah like iron man wasn’t ultra popular but also it’s not like they tried to kickstart a cinematic universe with like, a fucking frog man movie or something either
I mean he had multiple TV cartoons so yes it’s not like they started with something more genuinely unknown like Guardians of the Galaxy. But I still say there is absolutely no comparison of the pre and post movie knowledge of Iron Man especially among the child audience.
Just because he’s significantly more popular now doesn’t mean that using him for the first MCU movie was “a risk” or that he wasn’t well-known. He’s just ridiculously popular now instead of kinda popular.