How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Marvel Universe
With its revenues sitting at over 11 billion dollars, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has not only rivalled and surpassed Star Wars as Disney’s reigning box office behemoth but also established the modern blueprint for building a successful story world. Some might say the MCU has an unfair advantage — it’s had close to 80 years to accumulate various source material from comics, cartoons, radio dramas and even hilarious false starts.
Star Wars, on the other hand, built its universe with the films themselves, generously aided by an elite-level merchandising strategy. This allowed them to branch out from within, using pretty much every communication medium in existence to further their cause, toilet paper included. We mustn’t downplay Marvel (Disney)’s brilliance or imply it benefits from any particular privilege because of its long content history; Warner Bros` DCU was born of comic books as well and yet, has not fared nearly as well despite their gargantuan resources.
So- what do Marvel`s head honcho, Kevin Feige and co. know about successful universe building that the braintrust at Universal’s “Dark Universe” have apparently missed? Universal owns Dracula, The Wolfman, Frankenstein, The Mummy and a host of other iconic characters that are far older and more recognizable worldwide than people realize, and yet they can’t seem to set fire to the flame. Could it be that Universal has not been able to present a convincing case for why audiences would find any of these properties compelling enough to birth a cohesive universe (especially in a post-Van Helsing world)? The ultimate problem may also be in the universe’s lack of connection, consistency and continuity.
The MCU works because its characters are connected in a meaningful way, their stories are intertwined and they share the same goals. While the quality of the individual products may vary slightly, there’s a strong and steady pulse that is felt throughout every single MUC release. The threads are clear and enforced with expert precision. Though these stories may have been born in paper comics originally, they have been made tangible and real, and in many cases improved and updated to avoid embarrassment. How would this formula apply in the DC Universe? There’s surely a great pitch somewhere in a fan forum that could work, but Universal has so far done nothing to truly sell us on the idea.
Marvel’s storytelling consistency is there as well- from the tone, the themes, the symbolism, all the way to the color schemes and costume design. Painstaking orchestration and meticulous planning is applied to explain why certain Marvel characters are not around to help during another’s standalone film, or why New York is being rebuilt in the Netflix’s sub-dimension. Every Marvel Universe product is sprinkled with references and Easter eggs that populate to its cosmos or signals its belonging to the greater whole. The message the audience gleans from all of it is that this world is real and its characters and interlaced stories are crucial to its existence. There are hair-raising stakes and consequences to everything that happens in the MCU and that means your universe creates more than just viewers, it forges loyal followers that will participate and continually promote everything they are served.
The final component to building a successful universe is to establish and remain faithful to one single powerful vision. This master plan should be mutable and sensitive to the ebbs and flows of socio-political realities and the public’s appetites. Ultimately, it has to stay on course and be championed by a single talented individual, along with a quorum of storytelling (and marketing) experts that take every step with orchestrated unity. A story world is only a strong as its guiding hand and clarity of direction. The “physics” and rules of engagement within that world must also be continually upheld or the product becomes compromised and can be perceived as lacking integrity, something diehard fans will pick up on instantly and might not shy away from protesting publicly.
