Recently, our own Phil Nugent took a look at the debut of Marvel Studios, the big-screen production arm of the comics company behind Spider-Man, the Hulk, and the Fantastic Four. While Marvel's been taking a critical beating lately with its flagship comics, losing retail ground to longtime rival DC, the opposite has been the case in the multiplex: Marvel's aggressive approach and multifaceted marketing has proven to be a success at the box office, and as a rule, Marvel's properties have outperformed DC's and brought in piles of cash for the company.
One of the reasons that Marvel became such a hit amongst comics fans in the 1960s was its 'multiverse' approach; unlike DC, which at the time told all their stories in a disconnected, separate manner, Marvel ran with the pretense that all their stories were taking place in the same world, at the same time, and pushed the idea that any one of their characters could show up in any of their titles. Fans took to the idea that all the stories were connected, that all the pieces mattered, and that what happened in one book made a difference in other books. The idea that the world of the Marvel Universe was unified and that the storytellers were actually creating pieces of a whole was so appealing that DC was forced to adopt it as an editorial policy for their own characters.
Now, as the Hollywood Reporter notes, Marvel is taking the same multiversal approach to their films. The much-discussed post-credits cameo by S.H.I.E.L.D. boss Nick Fury, to be reprised in the new Hulk film, hints at the cohesion that the studio hopes will make the upcoming Avengers movie a box office draw (and, incidentally, beat DC to the punch once again as Warner Brothers scrambles to figure out how to get a Justice League movie in the can). The driving force behind Marvel's unified approach in the comics was editor/writer/mastermind Stan Lee; with Marvel Studios, president Kevin Feige is stepping into that role and keeping the film franchises tied together. Warner Brothers has the money to make something similar happen, but will they give DC's editors a freer hand in film production -- and insist on an easing of the auteur approach that they've used in the recent past?
