MARVEL STUDIOS: Going Big on Entertaining us Mortals

Marvel on a Superhero roll

It's all about Marvel at the moment; the other day we had a Thor, Iron Man 1 & 2 movie marathon. I really got into the Shakespearian style conflicts, the good old will-or-won't they chemistry between the leads and the pretty amazing soundtracks. Plus, I do enjoy techno-gadget-costume fantasy sequences, apparently the military are actually testing out an Iron Man suit for combat, read here about the XOS2 suit - pronounced 'exo'. With all this in mind, I thought it'd be interesting to take a quick look at Marvel's success and story to date.

Thunderous Box-Office Performance
Thor looks like it will storm the Box-Office and replicate the kind of takings for Marvel Studios, that Iron Man achieved. So far it has collected £6.4 million already in the UK and $93 million in the US. Iron Man 1 & 2 collectively made over a BILLION. It hasn't always been this successful for Marvel comic creations, I took a look over their box-office receipts since the release of their first feature in 1986, the legendary dud, Howard the Duck.

Howard the Duck cost Universal $30 million to produce and took just $37 million worldwide. So the film broke even but the studio took a huge hit financially and critically. It took eleven years before another Marvel creation made it to the multi-plex, this time Sony took the risk. Men in Black, produced for $90million made a staggering $590 million world-wide. Then in the summer of 1996, Marvel Studios was set-up. They re-claimed their comic book creations and produced a mix of high profile, Spider-man, X-Men, and lesser well known comic book hero films, The Punisher, Elektra.

Disney's Epic Strategy
Interesting to note Marvel Studios produced two Hulks, both made with comparable budgets and generating similar Box Office. I'm curious why they re-made it - did they expect a bigger success on second outing? I think Marvel know now to never have a Duck in their movie title, and stick to featuring the words 'Man' and 'Men'.

In 2009, Disney bought Marvel Studios for $4billion, so that kind of explains their strategy for releasing in quick succession Thor, Captain America, Iron Man over the last few years. They are acquiring and building audiences for this EPIC outing: 

All-Star Superhero Film 'The Avengers'
I am really late on this, however Marvel studios announced at the 2010 at Comic-Con how they are putting all of their top heroes into one movie, The Avengers. 'That's the most ambitious movie ever seen', quipped Robert Downey Jnr at the all-star press announcement. See the press call video, it's quite exciting.

It's going to be HUGE. Then again, I have been writing lately about giving fans too much of what they want, which is not a bad thing, but the danger of over-kill. I really hope this is not a super-hero packed nightmare of s competing stories and OTT marketing. It will be really interesting to see how they integrate the different worlds of the heroes. In the meanwhile, check out this fan-made poster, I mean look at it, I am already picking on being on the Hulk's side.