2) Marvel is one of the most successful and well-loved film franchises of all time. It is hugely known globally and consists of a wide audience from all around the world. According to this article, the MCU has earned over $18.2 billion (equivalent to £13.7 billion) at the time it was written.
3) Back in 2007, Marvel was recovering after having been suffering from backlash and bankruptcy and had to sell the film rights of some of their most popular characters, some of which includes the X-Men which was sold to 20th Century Fox and Spider-Man, which had been sold to Sony. However, Marvel still owned other favoured characters, the ones who form the original Avengers, which consist of six heroes: Iron Man (Tony Stark), Captain America (Steve Rogers), God of Thunder (Thor Odinson), Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff), The Hulk (Bruce Banner) and Hawkeye (Clint Barton). Marvel then brought these six characters together and grouped them for a crossover film to introduce them as a team in The Avengers (2012), which was the first out of the four currently released Avengers movies. This crossover had been in the works since the very start. After the release of Iron Man (2008), the first film which took place in the MCU and the one that also kickstarted it, the producers began to continue the story and give the audience an insight on what was coming. They did this by including a post-credit scene at the end of Iron Man featuring Nick Fury, head of S.H.I.E.L.D (a secret global law-enforcement organisation) who is played by Samuel L Jackson mentioning the Avengers for the very first time.
4) In 1999, Sony had acquired film rights to the character known as Spider-Man. The studio began to make a Spider-Man trilogy starring Tobey Maguire who first played Peter Parker/Spider-Man. His trilogy was hugely successful and so approximately five years after the last movie of the Raimi trilogy (Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man movies) released, Sony rebooted the franchise with Andrew Garfield taking on the role of the webslinging hero. However, Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man movies were a lot less successful, and following the release of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, it was announced that the third movie was cancelled after the second faced backlash and critical disappointment from the media. But in February 2015, Sony announced a deal to collaborate with Marvel Studios and bring Spider-Man into the MCU by rebooting the franchise once again, yet still owning the rights to the character. This time, the character of Peter Parker/Spider-Man was to be played by Tom Holland, who has just recently completed his trilogy of MCU Spider-Man movies last year, after the release of his third movie Spider-Man: No Way Home on December 15th 2021 which was exceedingly successful and earned $1.916 billion at the box office. This movie was described by the cast as a "welcome back to cinemas" for some, as it was the first movie many people had gone to see on the big screen since before the pandemic. Tom Holland's Spider-Man has appeared across six MCU films, the first one being Captain America: Civil War in which his character was initially introduced into the MCU. Others include: Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man: Far From Home, Spider-Man: No Way Home and also two Avengers movies: Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame - both of which were highly successful and each earned over $2 billion at the box office. Spider-Man: No Way Home allowed Tom Holland's predecessors, Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, to come into his universe (the MCU) as their own Spider-Man characters and battle alongside him, both playing vital roles which further fully shaped the MCU Spider-Man's character arc and brought Tom Holland's first trilogy to a close, with talks of a second one in the air. It also introduced the multiverse, which is now a key plot in recent Marvel films that came after the Infinity Saga (Phases 1-3), as Phases 4 and beyond have now been named the "Multiverse Saga".
5) In 1994, Marvel had sold the film rights to the X-Men and Fantastic Four to 20th Century Fox to avoid chances of facing bankruptcy. However in 2019, Marvel Studios regained the film rights to these two properties by buying them back for $71.3 billion; which will allow them to introduce these characters into the MCU in future films.
5) In 1994, Marvel had sold the film rights to the X-Men and Fantastic Four to 20th Century Fox to avoid chances of facing bankruptcy. However in 2019, Marvel Studios regained the film rights to these two properties by buying them back for $71.3 billion; which will allow them to introduce these characters into the MCU in future films.
6) Disney had announced plans to release several Marvel TV series on their streaming service Disney+, with one of them being the announcement of "Loki" - a series which is solely based on Loki Laufeyson, the adopted brother of Thor Odinson, the God of Thunder. This series is based on an alternate version of Loki, who created a new timeline and wound up in a place known as the TVA (Time Variance Authority) following the events of Avengers: Endgame where "past" Loki managed to escape being captured by the Avengers for his crimes in The Avengers (2012) in which he played the leading antagonist. This past version of Loki managed to portal away after he had sought the Tesseract (the Space Stone, one of six Infinity Stones) during the Avengers time heist in Avengers: Endgame - in which the remaining Avengers had attempted to collect all six Infinity Stones by travelling back to the past to get the stones from a certain fixed point in time in order to defeat the main villain of the saga, Thanos the Mad Titan, and revive their fallen allies (who were presumed dead five years prior along with half the population of the universe after being wiped out of existence at the hands of Thanos). The Loki series starred Tom Hiddleston playing an alternate timeline version of Loki, after the original Loki who held an important role within Phases 1-3 of the MCU finally met his tragic demise in Avengers: Infinity War, after being strangled to death by Thanos following a failed attempt to save his brother Thor. Though he had several falsely proclaimed deaths throughout past movies, it has been speculated that his death in Avengers: Infinity War was genuine this time and cannot be undone. However, with this alternate timeline version of Loki, it opens up new opportunities regarding this character for more future MCU projects, despite the fact that he isn't exactly the same one which had been a part of the previous three phases.
Grade 8/9 Extension tasks:
The Guardian rated the Black Widow movie 4 stars out of 5. They described the movie as being "well overdue" as this was a movie many Marvel fans or fans of Natasha Romanoff also known as Black Widow (played by Scarlett Johansson) had been waiting to release for a long time. This movie follows Natasha's story after the events of Captain America: Civil War, which ended up with her having to go into hiding after being searched for a warrant of her arrest, as she ended up siding with Steve Rogers (Captain America) and let him escape the government - not only violating the Sokovia Accords (a set of legal documents ratified by the United Nations as a response to the previous damage and destruction caused by the Avengers during past missions, destroying cities and costing thousands of lives) but also betraying her teammate and friend, Tony Stark (Iron Man). It serves as a prequel, taking place directly before the events of Avengers: Infinity War, despite the fact that it released three years after the third Avengers movie. It also takes place before Natasha met her end in Avengers: Endgame, sacrificing her life to save her beloved close friend Clint Barton (Hawkeye) and to obtain the Soul Stone for the Avengers time heist, much to the utter dismay of Black Widow fans all over the world. Black Widow gives audiences an insight on Natasha Romanoff's past, when she was part of a fake family and then at a young age was sent along with her adopted sister Yelena Belova to a place called the Red Room, also known as the Black Widow program - a secret Soviet-Russian program in which she grew up to become a highly trained assassin/spy and treated as a weapon, along with many other women. Years after escaping the horrors of the Red Room, becoming a S.H.I.E.L.D agent and then going on to join the Avengers, Natasha ends up in turmoil and then joins forces with her sister Yelena in a plan to take down the Red Room once and for all after learning that her attempt years before had failed. This was where she believed that she had killed Dreykov, the person in charge, in a building which she and Clint Barton had bombed; resulting in her thinking she had rid of the Red Room yet also fatally injuring Dreykov's daughter in the process - this was known as the "Budapest" incident and was hinted slightly in past films. Black Widow deeply conveys Natasha's family trauma and identity crisis yet also introduces her comic rivalry with her ruthless sister Yelena, played by Florence Pugh. Writers of the Guardian commented on this entertaining relationship between these two sisters, which was one of the fan-favourite parts of the movie. The Guardian also goes on to speak about Natasha and Yelena's fake parents Melina and Alexei, played by Rachel Weisz and David Harbour, and the history of the two - remarking on the humorous character of Alexei who is also known as the Red Guardian. The article continues to talk about each scene shown within the Black Widow teaser trailer, making assumptions and coming up with theories throughout. A mention of the face-off and incredible fight scene between Natasha and Dreykov is also praised, expressed as an "impressive bone-crunching close-quarter martial arts fight scene". One theory included within the article is the "teasingly potent relationship" between Natasha and Alexei, as he is a character who has a fit of temper and likes to smash things - linking back to the short yet bittersweet relationship between Natasha and Bruce Banner (also known as The Hulk - someone else who possesses those same qualities) in Avengers: Age of Ultron, perhaps hinting that Natasha holds a soft spot for troubled people like them. The Guardian then concludes the article by describing the film as "great fun" and hints at future opportunities of David Harbour reprising his role as Alexei in his own spin-off series - which has not yet been confirmed nor denied by the producers at Marvel Studios. However, he is to return in an upcoming project named "Thunderbolts" which is set to release on 26th July 2024, featuring Florence Pugh as Yelena, David Harbour as Alexei and other familiar faces of different characters which have appeared within past MCU films - all of which are coming together to form a team of anti-heroes, with Yelena leading the group.
Marvel published its first ever comic book in 1939 and was given the name "Timely Comics". Now, in today's day and age, it is one of the biggest names in entertainment. Many of its movies have surpassed as much as $1 billion at the box office, for example Avengers: Endgame, Captain Marvel and Spider-Man: No Way Home. This is a huge success for the company seeing as they almost ended up bankrupt in the 1990s. One of the biggest factors towards Marvel's past success was the fact that they created different superheroes depending on important social change events happening at the time, e.g. the X-Men have been seen as a metaphor for prejudice against groups such as the LBGTQ+ community and Black Panther (the first black superhero to appear in American mainstream comic books) is believed to have been inspired by the Civil Rights movement going on in America. Recently, Marvel has branched out and created a more diverse collection of superheroes such as Miles Morales, the first black Spider-Man, and Kamala Khan - the first Muslim character to have her own comic book. There are more characters used for representation such as a member from the X-Men named Dust, who is from Afghanistan and wears a niqab. Another reason Marvel is so successful is because it consists of a large range of flawed superheroes, for example Spider-Man and the Hulk. This became popular with audiences as they were more like ordinary people, instead of being "perfect" and propped up on a pedestal the whole time as they too make mistakes like normal people. Many of Marvel's most triumphant characters are those that are outsiders or outcasts, as they generally have a deeper and a more captivating story-line. Over the years, Marvel continues to bring in a wide range of audiences, whether they are comic book readers or movie lovers, which is why it has survived as long as it has and will continue to.
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