Thank You Marvel Films

The year is 2024 and one of the biggest brands of not only entertainment, but pop culture as a whole is Marvel. If you ask someone today what is Marvel they will be quick to tell you everything under the sun about the Marvel Cinematic Universe owned by Disney Studios. Very understandable, I mean there’s not too many people you’ll find who aren’t Avengers fans right? I’m a huge fan of the MCU myself, I even consider myself an MCU fanatic, but when I was a little kid in the early 2000s there was no MCU. We just had Marvel Films, movies that were based off Marvel Comics characters that were distributed by various film studios with the assistance and oversight over Marvel Comics Enterprises. In the early 2000s these films were my MCU and all of us nerds of the late 90’s and early 2000s loved them. These movies are also responsible for why we have the Marvel Cinematic Universe and they need to be given more acknowledgment and credit for paving the way for the MCU.

How did Marvel really make it to the big screen of film? Well it started in the mid to late 90s when Marvel Comics as a company was kind of in a slump, a dry spell if you will. Then came an idea to bring a Marvel character who wasn’t very well known outside the comic book world to the big screen, his name is Blade. With New Line Cinema studios at the helm of its distribution Blade’s film was being put together as a big budget vampire action film written by David S. Goyer, directed by Stephen Norrington and starring Wesley Snipes as the titular character.

With its highly stylized action and broody personality Blade was released in 1998 to great success both critically and commercially. This was the moment that the “comic book” genre of film as we know it was born. This was also the moment when Marvel Enterprises realized they could turn more popular Marvel characters into profitable films. Then came the conception of X-Men (2000) and Spider-Man (2002).

X-Men and Spider-Man both ended up being critical and commercial smash hits. Along with Blade they both also ended up getting sequels and became successful franchises. By 2003 Marvel enterprises was fully invested in turning their most popular characters into big screen wins. This was continued by The Hulk (2003), The Punisher (2004), Daredevil (2004), Electra (2005), The Fantastic Four (2005), and Ghost Rider (2007).

Though these films had a collective mixed response with movie critics, their reception with fans was generally positive and they were all considerable big wins at the box office. I remember being crazy about all these movies as a small boy in the early 2000s when I was in elementary school. Me, my friends and my cousins of the same age group were locked in and focused on all these film’s releases as Marvel fans. Back then we were the children that woke up on Saturday mornings and watched all the Marvel cartoon shows like Spider-Man, X-Men and The Incredible Hulk, so to see these cartoons being turned into live action block busters for the big screen was a dream come true for us.

These were the movies we were geeking out over at recess and the lunch table on a Friday afternoon in elementary and middle school, talking about how much we couldn’t wait to see them that night when they premiered and even giving our fan predictions for what we thought was gonna happen in the movies. Even with the A-list star power these movies had with people like Wesley Snipes, Halle Berry, Eric Bana, John Travolta, Ben Affleck and Nicholas Cage, Marvel films were still mainly regulated to the nerd audience like myself. The wider audience that Marvel has today as we know it was not yet locked in to craze. The films were also riddled with the fan favorite Stan Lee cameos that Marvel audiences are notoriously familiar with.

By the second half of the early 2000s the quality of Marvel films was starting dwindle in reception, both critically and commercially, so Kevin Feige who was responsible for producing all of Marvel’s films decided to bring Marvel’s characters to Disney studios for a complete formation of a shared cinematic universe starting with a film titled Iron Man. The rest as we know is history.

With the takeover of the Marvel Cinematic Universe the production rights of Marvel Films had been gradually acquired by the Marvel Cinematic Universe at Disney Studios. Even before the big move to Disney Marvel Films still had a charismatic and appealing presence with what remained at Fox Studios like the rebranded Amazing Spider-Man films and what was left of the dominating X-Men franchise, in particular the vastly popular merc with the mouth known as Deadpool.

Fast forward to the present day and the Marvel Cinematic Universe is the most dominant franchise in modern cinema. What many people today don’t realize is this dominance is because of Marvel Films. If Marvel Films had not kicked down the door for comic book films today everywhere then the MCU as we know it would not exist. Of course you can’t mention Marvel without names like Robert Downey Jr., but you definitely can’t talk about Marvel without mentioning names like Wesley Snipes, Hugh Jackman and Tobey Maguire. This week Marvel just released their latest hit feature Deadpool & Wolverine and let me tell you, this movie is a tear jerking loveletter to the brand of Marvel Films that paved the way for the MCU. I myself and countless others will forever be grateful to Stan Lee and Marvel Films and the doors they opened for the culture and we will continue to give them those flowers which have been forever overdue. Marvel Films are still alive