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We hope you’re still with us after that last behemoth of an article, because here’s another one! The Countdown to Doomsday series continues as we chronicle every era of Marvel cinema, revisiting each piece of the cinematic picture and how they contribute to the coming multiverse throw-down.
The gamble of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) paid off big-time with The Avengers, proving that a connected multi-franchise narrative was not only workable, but something audiences were hungry for. Comics fans finally obtained a taste of the storytelling they enjoyed on the page, while wider audiences digested longer-form narratives typical to prestige television, yet with far bigger budgets and spectacle.
Still, The Dark Knight‘s shadow loomed as the only superhero film with a Big 4 Oscar, and its trilogy capper was coming in summer 2012. Kevin Feige and Marvel Studios wondered if they could prove the MCU was more than a gimmick or just one type of movie. They had Disney money now, but big budgets didn’t guarantee high quality.
And as the MCU prepared to stretch its wings, Sony and Fox kept competing, wanting to keep their franchises relevant. Plus, outside of Marvel, Warner Bros. chased the MCU’s dollar signs and prepared its DC properties for their own universe, since Christopher Nolan firmly shut down the possibility of continuing after his third Batman film.
Thus, the 2010s were primed to be the most competitive era of superhero cinema yet.
Era Five: Spidey vs X-Men vs MCU
We define Marvel’s fifth era as the two-year period between mid-2012 to the end of 2014. In these two years, nine Marvel movies released, and they signalled a new type of superhero storytelling in the wake of The Avengers.
On the MCU side, Phase Two began. The MCU started with no specific plans aside from building to The Avengers, but now Feige and other executives were enthused by Joss Whedon‘s Thanos tease. With box-office grosses and audience reaction supporting them, their priority became penning out the rest of the MCU’s path. They could afford to be bold.
While they’d already written the conclusion of Iron Man’s trilogy, Marvel became more deliberate about building towards a specific story with the rest of their films in development: a story that culminated in something even grander than The Avengers. During Thor: The Dark World‘s production, Marvel Studios finalized its grand vision and retrofitted their planned films, including many sequels and a few for new heroes, to match this scheme. By 2014’s end, the MCU’s story was in a much different place.
Luckily for these plans, box-office success continued for the MCU in this era, signaling that the MCU brand itself now drove audiences. Observers coined this phenomenon “The Avengers boost,” and it seemed to bolster each subsequent movie’s profits. This was likely what Disney envisioned when it bought the company. Despite these grand schemes and Feige maintaining oversight to create a house style, he also started pushing filmmakers to bring other genres into MCU movies. He wanted the universe’s tapestry to be something more than just one formula. Marvel’s success at doing so was debated in this era and in the years to come.
Disney’s animation wing delivered another Marvel adaptation. While disconnected from the MCU, the historic Disney Animation Studios making a Marvel movie was corporate synergy at work, and successful corporate synergy if profits are any indicator.
Meanwhile, Sony and Fox were determined to cash in on the somehow still-growing superhero box office. Sony outright rebooted its franchise into something seemingly more modern, while surprisingly working closely with Marvel Studios despite ongoing tensions. In what would define Sony’s haphazard approach to its IP, it rushed things to try to keep up and once again damaged its Spider-Man franchise, resulting in Sony halting further individual Spidey films. Feige was ever eager to bring Spider-Man into the MCU’s fold, and as this era ended, Sony finally conceded (for now) that the MCU was better.
Fox also wanted their own event film, wisely cashing in on nostalgia that now existed for their original trilogy and the enthusiasm over X-Men: First Class to adapt one of the more notable X-Men stories. That the story involved time travel — conveniently allowing Fox to make their soft reboot in-universe and priming the next era of X-Men movies — didn’t hurt either. Unlike Sony, Fox seemed to learn from their mistakes and set up a brighter future, though that sadly (for some fans) kept the X-Men out of the MCU.
If 2014 was any indication, Marvel was more successful than not, launching one of its most obscure properties into a summer hit. The brand now seemed unstoppable. And did they just say Infinity Stones? Ohhh snap!
Sandwiched between The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises in summer 2012 was Sony’s Spider-Man reboot. As we chronicled back in Era 3, Spider-Man 3 brought an end to Sam Raimi‘s time on Spider-Man films and superhero movies for over a decade. Rather than hire someone else to direct Raimi’s fourth film (and because Avi Arad, working with Sony since his Marvel departure, apparently thought all the script drafts were terrible), Sony opted to reboot the franchise. Some might say it was a tad early for a reboot, but the legalities of film rights aren’t conducive for artistic integrity. Sony was required to make a movie within so many years or lose the rights.
Plus, to be fair, Spider-Man 3 wasn’t well-received. Perhaps Sony wanted to wash out the bad taste. Despite Raimi’s departure, most of the producers remained and were keen to focus on a younger Peter Parker again. As Matt Tolmach ascended to Columbia Pictures president, he worked alongside Amy Pascal, now co-chairman of Sony Pictures (Columbia’s owner), to find a new director. Pascal was involved with the earlier films when she was lower down the corporate ladder, and she saw herself leading the charge of bringing Spider-Man into a new era and making her own stamp on the franchise.
They considered big names like David Fincher (often considered for superhero movies by this point) and Kathryn Bigelow, yet ultimately settled on Marc Webb, who’d recently debuted with the romantic film (500) Days of Summer. Perhaps they liked his voice for youthful characters, or perhaps he would be easier to control than a more experienced director. Maybe it was just his last name.
Regardless, Webb expressed enthusiasm upon being hired. Though he was a fan of Raimi’s movies, Webb hoped to do something different that stood out in the canon. The writing process began with screenwriters Alvin Sargent and James Vanderbilt taking one of their unmade Spider-Man 4 drafts and reworking it into a reboot. Later, Harry Potter screenwriter Steve Kloves and Paul Feig of all people provided further rewrites and contributions.
With a director and story set, next came recasting Spidey. The search dominated the first half of 2010, with Sony considering a broad span of actors for this important character. Some notable highlights included Drake Bell, Alden Ehrenreich, Josh Hutcherson, Joe Jonas, and Logan Lerman. Finally in July 2010, as Iron Man 2 finished its theatrical run, Sony announced Andrew Garfield.
Webb was impressed with Garfield’s humor, physicality, and emotional heft as an actor. While Garfield was little known at the time of casting, the fall release of The Social Network certainly changed that and created anticipation for Garfield’s portrayal. Garfield flung himself into preparation, practicing yoga and Pilates to increase his flexibility and later publicly commented on how demanding his training was. A true Spider-Man fan, Garfield admitted he shed a tear when he wore the suit for the first time, skintight as it was.
The rest of the cast fell into place throughout the remainder of 2010. Gwen Stacy took over as the main love interest, with the studio considering Imogen Poots, Lily Collins, and Mia Wasikowska among others. Yet Emma Stone won the part following Garfield’s casting, thanks to their strong chemistry during screen testing. The pair dated for a time after working together on the films. Despite considering Michael Fassbender, whose reputation grew during filming of X-Men: First Class, Sony ultimately cast Rhys Ifans as Curt Connors/The Lizard, allowing that character to finally become a main villain after teases in the Raimi trilogy.
Sally Field, meanwhile, took the role of Aunt May as a favor to ailing producer friend Laura Ziskin, who sadly passed before the film’s release. In an homage to Raimi, Webb included a cameo from Michael Papajohn, who played the burglar in Spider-Man. Stan Lee also provided his standard cameo. In a fun bit of future looking back, a very young Skyler Gisondo appears as one of Gwen’s younger brothers. He went on to star in 2025’s Superman.
Filming began by December 2010, with Webb eager to do something different than Raimi had done. In the trend of comic accuracy, he decided to have Peter build artificial web shooters, like in the comics. Conversely, and perhaps influenced by The Dark Knight, the team designed a lither and darker Spider-Man outfit than what usually exists in the comics.
Webb also sought to do more action scenes practically, using stunt performers rather than relying on CGI as Raimi’s movies often did. To that end, Garfield and Ifans performed many of their own stunts, with Ifans insisting on wearing the motion-capture suit for the reptilian form of his character. On the even more technical side, as part of the 3D-wave, the film shot in 3D at 5k resolution using RED Epic cameras. While the MCU was converting to 3D in post, Webb committed to the trend and shot in 3D to enhance the effect. This might have delayed the design of Oscorp Tower enough that it could not make it into The Avengers, as we previously detailed.
The film prepared for its summer 2012 release with an ambitious viral marketing campaign. Sony projected the Spider-Man logo on famous world sites such as the Kremlin, Sydney Opera House, and Colosseum, and created websites for The Daily Bugle and Oscorp. It also created a scavenger hunt, placing props in hidden locations that fans could find — perhaps another aspect of the movie The Dark Knight influenced.
July 2012 arrived with Sony likely privately despairing that they didn’t get to include a direct connection to The Avengers. With the MCU’s crown jewel still raking in money, Sony wondered if this reboot could compete.
Early signs were encouraging, as The Amazing Spider-Man set a Tuesday-record $35 million on opening day before the July 4 holiday. But as the holiday weekend came to a close, it finished at $137 million, far smaller than Spider-Man 2‘s similar Independence Day weekend release. The Amazing Spider-Man still managed an overall strong run, playing well overseas with the Chinese box office especially buoyant, and it finished worldwide with $757.9 million, managing 7th at the 2012 box-office. It did much less well than The Avengers, but it did better than any other MCU film that year.
Critical response was equally mid-tier. Many were positive overall and felt it improved on aspects of 2002’s Spider-Man. Garfield and Stone’s performances received almost universal praise. But even positive reviews admitted it often felt a retread of familiar story elements. Harsher critics derided it, finding The Amazing Spider-Man was “dumbed down” compared to the Raimi trilogy and overly focused on appealing to modern, moodier trends. Almost all critics criticized the Lizard as the main villain and the cartoonish motivation driving the plot. The movie’s Flickscore is currently 69.
Roger Ebert liked it. Sadly, it proved to be his final review of a Marvel-adjacent property, as he died from complications of cancer in 2013.
While not an unequivocal success, Sony was pleased enough to continue with the rebooted series. A script for a sequel was already in the works, and Sony ambitiously started planning further sequels and even spin-off movies. Perhaps envisioning a universe to rival the MCU, the movie even plugged a post-credit scene. It was a hilariously vague one, merely featuring a shadowy figure talking to Curt Connors in a jail cell with no solid references or plans. Sony wasn’t about to dethrone Marvel Studios, but they were prepared to keep competing and maintain their own slice of the Marvel box office pie.
Likelihood of Doomsday Connection: Medium
As a later part of the article will describe, this iteration did eventually fail, leading Sony to give up on its own Spider-Man movies. All the same, Garfield eventually successfully returned to the tights in Spider-Man: No Way Home. We’ll talk more about that eventually, but there is some chance the Garfield iteration will appear in Doomsday given how well received his return was in No Way Home. Rhys Ifans also returned in that movie, at least in CGI, but we think that’s the end of the line for him. We’ll save our comments on the rest of the cast.
With the relative success of The Amazing Spider-Man, fans eager to see Spidey in the MCU were likely displeased. Small movements towards comic-accuracy, like the inclusion of web-shooters, pleased some, but Sony still hadn’t knocked it out of the park. Because Spidey is an anchor Marvel character, fans certainly felt his absence in the MCU, but Marvel had to move on without him. (Feige was likely already scheming on a way to get him involved.)
The latter part of July brought the conclusion to Christopher Nolan‘s trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises. While it was a massive box-office success, grossing over $1 billion, it failed to surpass The Avengers. Plus, critical reception was more mixed, with some feeling Nolan dropped the ball. It was still overall well-received, but certainly it was not the genre-changer that its predecessor was. Four years later, Marvel controlled the box office and cultural zeitgeist, and there was no better way to follow-up on The Avengers than with the conclusion of Marvel’s own most lucrative trilogy: Iron Man.
Of course, given the lengthy nature of blockbuster filmmaking, preproduction on Iron Man 3 began before The Avengers released. As previously hinted at, disagreements on distribution between Paramount and Disney led Disney to buy Iron Man 3‘s distribution rights in 2010, ending Paramount’s run with Marvel and setting up the trilogy-capper as the first film to be funded independently of the Merrill-Lynch loan that started it all.
Iron Man 3 was also the first film of the newly-dubbed Phase Two. Feige announced this at the 2012 San Diego ComicCon, along with the entire line-up of Phase Two, and he confirmed that Thanos would not be the next Avengers villain but that the MCU would build up to him. This Phase expanded the universe and would accidentally be defined by every movie featuring someone losing a hand or arm. Throughout 2012, Feige made further moves, including locking Joss Whedon to an exclusive contract wherein he would write and direct the Avengers sequel, oversee all Phase Two movies alongside Feige, and help develop the first MCU TV series.
All of this cemented the transition away from Jon Favreau. Despite being the pioneering MCU directorial voice, Favreau moved on after Iron Man 2, seeking instead to direct non-Marvel projects such as the failed Magic Kingdom movie and Chef. Favreau did remain as a producer and as Happy Hogan, Stark’s former bodyguard, who in a nice piece of meta-storytelling became even more redundant.
Yet with Favreau unwilling to finish his trilogy, Marvel needed to find a new voice. Once again Robert Downey Jr. used his star power and pushed for Shane Black to write and direct. Black had already contributed story suggestions to Iron Man 2, and Downey felt gratitude to Black for casting him in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang when most of Hollywood wouldn’t touch him. Downey said Black was the only person to carry out the transition from Favreau.
Marvel locked Black in by February 2011, also hiring Drew Pearce to cowrite, moving him from the abandoned Runaway movie they’d originally hired him to write. Black was hesitant to work with Pearce, since he was used to working with writing partners of his own choosing, but meetings with Pearce assuaged his concerns. The pair desired to avoid the trope of two iron suits fighting each other, and they left out magic and space elements more suitable to Avengers adventures.
They were primarily influenced by the “Extremis” story arc, though they sprinkled in other comics references such as the Iron Patriot armor. The initial primary villain was Maya Hansen. Subsequent drafting led to inclusion of Aldrich Killian and the Mandarin, Iron Man’s arch-nemesis that had been teased earlier. It was Pearce who developed the controversial decision to make Mandarin a fake terrorist. While comics fans later criticized the film for this twist reveal, Black found it inspiring and realistic, as a terrorist wouldn’t be so open and obvious about who they were, and the villain’s grandiose nature in the comics made for a fitting disguise.
Even with the Mandarin reveal, Black and Pearce still wanted Hansen as the primary antagonist. Marvel Entertainment executives (likely Ike Perlmutter) shut this down, believing a woman as the main villain would lead to reduced toys sales. Black is on record that Feige had no part in this, but he lacked the power to stand up to the execs at the time. Thus, Black and Pearce were forced to rewrite Hansen and include Killian. They also set the film at Christmas, which is somewhat of a staple for Black’s works.
While Black and Pearce finalized a shooting script, story rewrites continued throughout production, leading to a logistically-frustrating shoot at times, seemingly a running theme with the Iron Man films. With studio space secured in North Carolina, casting began for the new characters. Anthony Mackie auditioned for the role of Mandarin but lost the part to Ben Kingsley, though both would have MCU futures to come (just barely in Kingsley’s case, as early drafts had his character dying). Marvel considered Chinese actors for Harley Keener, a young boy essential to the movie’s plot, as part of an overall push to make the film more appealing to the Chinese film market. A Chinese company agreed to co-finance production, which led to the inclusion of several Chinese film stars including Wang Xueqi. Alternate cuts of Iron Man 3 feature more scenes of the Chinese performers.
But they didn’t cast a Chinese actor for Keener, as Marvel Studios co-president Louis D’Esposito stated they didn’t want to ape Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom‘s dynamic. Marvel brought in Guy Pearce for Killian while casting Rebecca Hall for Hansen after Jessica Chastain bowed out. Emilia Clarke of Game of Thrones fame also initially played a role before her character was written out. She too would eventually join the MCU.
Black and the production team sought to do action scenes practically when possible in the effects-heavy picture. One of the film’s more notable sequences of Iron Man catching passengers falling from the sky was filmed with actual skydivers, for instance. Reshoots, an increasingly habitual practice for Marvel and blockbusters by 2013, captured more material with the Mandarin. Despite the push for practicality, Iron Man 3 still featured over 2000 effects shots with 17 effects companies working on them. As Stark advanced his suits in the story, it unfortunately became increasingly impractical to have practical designs for them.
Marvel first began marketing the movie in July 2012, shortly after The Avengers released, at none other than San Diego ComicCon. With a panel discussing the film and displaying Iron Man’s prior armors, it became clear Iron Man 3 would have the most suits yet. Marvel also utilized a massive array of product placement, utilizing the Disney theme parks for the first time, part of the company’s growing synergy with the Marvel brand. Marvel Studios officially moved its executive offices into Disney Studios in April 2013, as Marvel continued to fold into the Disney umbrella. Meanwhile, Feige confirmed in January 2013 that Ant-Man would no longer be the first film of Phase Three, but instead would cap off Phase Two.
Iron Man 3‘s wide release came in May 2013. While this was already the most successful MCU sub-franchise, The Avengers boost was palpable. It made $68.9 million on its opening day and finished the weekend with $372.5 million, the second-highest opening weekend of all-time at that point, behind only The Avengers. It sustained an immense box-office run, surpassing $1 billion after twenty-three days, and finished at $1.266 billion, more than Iron Man and Iron Man 2 combined.
The critical response was a bit mixed, or rather, dichotomous. Some felt it was the best entry in the trilogy, maturely wrestling with Tony Stark’s PTSD following The Avengers and finding interesting things to do with his character in what felt like a wrap for the trilogy. Critics especially praised Downey’s dynamic with Keener. Flickchart users give it an aggregate Flickscore of 75, placing it slightly above Iron Man 2 but far below Iron Man.
Some were less friendly though, feeling it lacked dramatic weight and was too formulaic. Even harsher were many comic fans. In the first big blow to MCU’s claims of source authenticity, a section of fans ripped apart the movie’s Mandarin twist, leading many to this day to consider it one of the worst MCU movies. The backlash was immediate and palpable, much to Black’s shock, as he didn’t think the character was that sacred. As a result, Marvel eventually partially retconned the twist.
Despite this controversy, many remained excited about the MCU overall. With massive profit on a trilogy closer, Marvel and Disney saw the financial potential swelling. Not only could they tell an interconnected narrative, they had an interconnected media system bolstering the profits of each entry.
That said, Iron Man 3 ended Downey’s initial MCU contract. At this time, his MCU future was unclear despite the Avengers sequel coming and plenty of money to be made. Downey vacillated on his returning or if there would be a fourth Iron Man film. In fact, this remains the last solo Iron Man movie, as all subsequent Stark appearances were in team-up movies or as cameos. The one that started it all had his own trilogy come to an end, but while it felt like a conclusion in many ways, the MCU’s nature allowed Stark’s character arc to continue.
The post-credits scene gave no hints as to where the MCU was going. Instead, the scene humorously revealed that Stark’s narration throughout the movie was to a sleeping Bruce Banner. While a funny sting cameo for Mark Ruffalo, it added nothing to the narrative. The MCU went the comedic route on many future post-credit scenes, triggering another debate on whether this was a good thing.
On a final note, Iron Man 3‘s home release featured another One-Shot, Agent Carter. Directed by Marvel executive Louis D’Esposito, it featured the return of Hayley Atwell‘s Peggy Carter, a character with a long MCU future to come. This short was quite popular due to Atwell’s endearing performance, and it eventually led to another MCU TV series. More on that later.
Likelihood of Doomsday Connection: Medium
We’ve spoken plenty on Downey’s return in Doomsday. As it happened, Kingsley also reprised his role in several subsequent Marvel projects, including recently in Wonder Man, a surprising longevity for a Marvel semi-villain character. As for anything else, Stark’s surgery and use of Extremis altered his MCU story arc moving forward, but it seems unlikely to matter for Doom’s backstory.
The Wolverine (2013)
While 2013 is host to another MCU and its first TV show, the summer season was dominated by competition both inside and outside Marvel. After passing on many Marvel projects, Zack Snyder finally made his major superhero stamp with Man of Steel in June 2013, launching the competing DCEU. Christopher Nolan may have been finished directing superhero projects, but he was happy to shepherd his friends’ material, with his signature “darker” grounded style serving as a reference point. Though critical reviews were mixed, and the box-office not quite as spectacular as the last two MCU outings, it served as a rallying point for those dissatisfied with the seemingly formulaic and light MCU.
Fox, meanwhile, continued onward with its X-Men franchise. After First Class‘s success, Fox was teeing up its own event film to try to compete with the likes of The Avengers. But first came The Wolverine.
Despite Fox’s helter-skelter approach, constantly revamping sequel and prequel ideas, they realized Wolverine remained their most popular character. And even with the relative failure of X-Men Origins: Wolverine sidelining many similar projects, Fox had discussed a direct Wolverine sequel as early as 2007 with thoughts of adapting the Wolverine in Japan stories. Some cuts of Origins: Wolverine included a post-credit scene with Wolverine drinking in a Japanese bar, though this was altered to a scene featuring Deadpool in the general American release.
Hugh Jackman was a huge fan of the Japanese stories and pushed hard for a Wolverine movie to go that direction. As Origins‘ production wrapped, producer Lauren Shuler Donner sought a potential writer to develop the idea, though she struggled to find the right fit. In 2009 Fox finally committed to a sequel and hired Christopher McQuarrie, who did some writing work on the original X-Men. Determined to take Logan to Japan, Fox sought for Bryan Singer to direct. He turned it down, as he had with other X-Men projects at the time.
Thus, Jackman again pitched for his pal Darren Aronofsky to direct. With the script finalized by early 2010, Aronofsky eventually committed in late 2010. Jackman was publicly excited about the sequel, hopeful something unique could be made with a McQuarrie script and Aronofsky directing. One of Aronofsky’s first public comments was that he was not treating the movie as a sequel but rather a “one-off,” with the story not following up on Origins and instead set after X-Men: The Last Stand, the first continuation of that timeline in years.
As it became clear that production required an extended overseas shoot in Japan, Aronofsky bowed out, sidelining production. By then First Class was preparing for release, leaving Fox with only The Wolverine to develop in order to keep competing with the burgeoning MCU; Days of Future Past was still in infancy. The 2011 Japan earthquake also sidetracked production, though the inability to shoot created time to find a replacement director.
While Jackman filmed Real Steel, he approached its director, Shawn Levy, about directing. Levy declined, though he would later direct Jackman as Wolverine. Fox also considered a variety of action-oriented directors including Antoine Fuqua, Doug Liman, and Justin Lin. Apparently Guillermo del Toro, another fan of the Wolverine Japan stories, pushed to direct as well, but ultimately he passed due to the lengthy production time. Fox eventually settled on James Mangold, who was building action credentials after beginning his career in drama. Perhaps this appealed to Jackman and Fox due to the direction they wanted to take Wolverine.
Despite Mangold’s hire, Jackman’s busy shooting schedule and further script rewrites from Mark Bomback continued to delay filming. By summer 2012 the film finalized its script again. Fox started hiring its Japanese cast, including Hiroyuki Sanada, another Japanese action actor slowly breaking into Hollywood cinema. Other stars included Tao Okamoto and Rila Fukushima.
As casting news spread, commentators commended The Wolverine for its unusual use of four female leads, a rarity for action flicks. Mangold and Jackman pushed Fox to make The Wolverine the first R-rated mainstream superhero movie since the Blade trilogy, but Fox refused. Speaking of Blade, Jessica Biel was originally in line to return to superhero cinema and play co-villain Viper, though negotiations broke down. For his part, Jackman took bulking tips from Dwayne Johnson, eating 6000 calories a day this time to gain the muscle to play Logan. More importantly, Jackman focused on bringing out Wolverine’s pain as his near-immortal nature caused him to lose everyone in his life.
Shooting finally began in July 2012. Sadly, despite shepherding the project, Shuler Donner was absent from filming due to breast cancer treatment. It was a global shoot, which was becoming normal for Fox’s X-Men movies. Production started in Australia, moved to Japan, and reshoots concluded in Canada. Despite the lengthy delays, production finished in November 2012 allowing post to take over. While still an effects-driven work, it wasn’t quite as FX-intensive as the MCU was becoming, and it only required four effects companies. One of the more difficult characters to render was Silver Samurai, due to the character’s highly-reflective surfaces making him more digital and cartoonish.
Fox mandated the inclusion of the character and some bigger third-act action scenes. Mangold later disclosed that Fox felt the urge to compete with the MCU’s bigger sequences and interfered in The Wolverine‘s production from time to time to achieve that. Mangold wanted to stick to a Japanese noir aesthetic, and he fought Fox’s demands.
While perhaps learning from Origins: Wolverine, Fox didn’t learn enough, and this is reflected in The Wolverine‘s reception after its July 2013 release. Critics and audiences were mixed, as indicated by the 71% Rotten Tomatoes score and 71 Flickscore. Many praised its more mature aspects and willingness to do something different with the character. Jackman’s performance in particular was highlighted for wrestling with the character’s trauma after so many movies. Yet a common critique was that the third act became a schlocky mess. Despite improvements, Fox still couldn’t help itself.
All the same, The Wolverine‘s box office did enough for Fox to continue making Wolverine solo films. It earned a respectable if not great $139.6 million on opening weekend and finished at $414.8 million, outgrossing Origins: Wolverine. A significant portion of that success came from the overseas audiences, as it became the highest-grossing X-Men film internationally.
Accordingly, Fox ordered a third film and brought back Jackman and Mangold. But the studio had another movie coming first, and taking a page from the MCU, they finally included a post-credits scene to set it up. Set a few years following The Wolverine, the scene shows Logan and the triumphant return of Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan, six years after their characters were seemingly finished. Even more intriguingly, it appeared to tease one of the more famed X-Men stories, “Days of Future Past.” An expansive time travel dystopia story, it demonstrated Fox had big ambitions and wanted to compete with the MCU.
While the dreams of a fully-united Marvel universe remained off the table, Fox appeared to be finally getting itself together, mostly. With two successes in a row and a clearer game plan for the future, competition was forcing Fox to do better. Though that had its downsides, as The Wolverine‘s final act indicated, the rising tide of superhero movie success was carrying all ships. 2013 was shaping up to be a good year for superhero cinema.
Likelihood of Doomsday Connection: Medium
While Wolverine’s appearance in Doomsday feels assured, that is probably the extent of anything from this movie. The Japanese characters feel too minor for any references, as The Wolverine is an under-the-radar superhero movie on the whole. Some elements were referenced in Logan, though.
Thor: The Dark World (2013)
Fall 2013 found the MCU expanding in a new way: to the small screen! Debuting in September 2013, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. furthered the MCU’s storytelling and expanded upon the intelligence agency that was a backbone of Phase One movies. It revived Clark Gregg‘s Phil Coulson after his seeming death in The Avengers alongside a cast of other characters, including notably Ming-Na Wen, as they dealt with superhuman issues on a weekly basis. It was a clever conceit co-created by Joss Whedon and his brother Jed, who largely took over running the show.
The hook was that it shared continuity with the films and might affect events in the films, and vice versa. However, the crossovers were fairly inconsistent and one-sided due to Marvel Television and Marvel Studios having separate corporate structures, and due to difficulties between Kevin Feige and Jeph Loeb. The show essentially never impacted the films, aside from two arguable moments. That said, the show’s first season did directly reflect events from the films, including Thor: The Dark World.
Marvel officially announced the Thor sequel in 2011, before the first film even released. This took director Kenneth Branagh by surprise, since he was unused to Marvel’s expansive and rapid approach to franchise filmmaking. While Branagh was initially open to returning to direct, he was soon put off by Marvel’s methodology of quickly moving onto the next movie. He needing more time between lengthy productions, and he ultimately declined the director’s chair.
Marvel did moved quickly, officially hiring Don Payne, who helped write the first movie, as screenwriter the next day. Payne initially wrote Hela as the main antagonist, but as with Iron Man 3, Marvel Entertainment executives shut this down believing it would harm toy sales. As for filling the director’s chair, Marvel wanted to strike the Game of Thrones iron while it was hot and initially pursued Brian Kirk, but Kirk passed. Marvel then pivoted and hired Patty Jenkins, and they also confirmed the return of Tom Hiddleston and Natalie Portman.
Yet by December 2011, Jenkins left the project due to creative differences. She and Marvel never could square on story direction. Marvel resumed chasing Game of Thrones talent at this point, eventually settling on Alan Taylor. Feige cited Taylor’s experience on Mad Men and Boardwalk Empire as further reason for the hire, hoping to ground Thor’s aesthetic a bit more in the Norse aspects and bring some dramatic heft in the vein of those shows.
Marvel was also interested in continuing Thor, Loki, and Jane Foster’s stories post-Avengers and further expanding the universe. To that end came the casting of a new villain, the dark elf Malekith. Without Branagh attached, Marvel had to pursue dramatic actors on its own. They again had Mads Mikkelsen under consideration, but he ultimately passed once he committed to Hannibal. Benedict Cumberbatch was also in the running, yet Marvel eventually settled on Christopher Eccleston. Most of the supporting cast from the first movie also returned, though Zachary Levi notably replaced Joshua Dallas as Fandral after nearly playing him in the first movie.
The writing process took a bit of turn at this point. Quite like Iron Man 2, Marvel decided to use Thor: The Dark World as a launching point for the future, resulting in many revisions. Christopher Yost came in to rewrite, followed by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, who were becoming Marvel darlings and worked on this script between drafts of Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
This was all because Marvel had officially decided what the MCU’s endgame would be: the Infinity Gauntlet. Disparate elements from various movies had to be retrofitted to become Infinity Stones, including this film’s MacGuffin, the Aether. Rewriting continued even as filming started in England and Iceland. Taylor later said that Joss Whedon came in “like a SWAT team” to rewrite a few scenes that weren’t working during filming.
In addition to changing things for the new MCU gameplan, another major element Marvel changed was Loki. Feige commented that The Dark World was initially meant as the conclusion of the “Loki trilogy” that started in Thor, with Loki’s death intended to be final. However, audience response in test screenings changed Marvel’s mind and led to rewriting his conclusion. Hiddleston and Chris Hemsworth‘s dynamic popped so much that reshoots were specifically done to add more scenes of banter between the brothers.
While Taylor was grateful to Whedon in some ways, he apparently lost control of the film during post-production. Marvel allegedly did extensive editing work that substantially changed the final product and narrative, including Taylor’s desire to have Loki die for real. Taylor later commented that he was dissatisfied with the final work and felt his vision was lost in re-editing. He apparently considered quitting directing due to how “wrenching” the experience was. In its desire to be grandiose, it seemed Marvel repeated many of the same mistakes its rivals had in the past.
Perhaps that’s part of the reason for the middling response upon its release in November 2013. Sitting at a mere 67% Rotten Tomatoes score and 67 Flickscore, many felt Thor: The Dark World was formulaic and lacking in genuine drama or heart. The hyper-bland villains were particularly criticized. Its reputation only further sank in the years afterwards, and it was widely considered the worst MCU movie until Phase Four. Still, most at least praised Hemsworth and Hiddleston’s charisma and chemistry together and felt it wasn’t entirely miserable or unwatchable.
The average reviews didn’t hurt the box office. In another likely Avengers boost, Thor: The Dark World opened to $109.4 million in its first five days and surpassed the first film’s gross by day nineteen. It became Disney’s best November release at the time and managed a strong running throughout the holiday period, finishing at $644.8 million.
Despite the uneven critical responses, it seemed Marvel found the secret sauce of connectivity, at least in terms of box-office dollars. With a fun cameo from Chris Evans as Captain America (albeit as an illusory disguise by Loki), the interconnected nature of the movies continued to entice fans.
It was perhaps the post-credits scenes that most tantalized people. The first featured several Asgardian characters visiting none other than The Collector, a notable entity in Marvel Comics. This teased his upcoming appearance in Guardians of the Galaxy, the announced Marvel project that raised the most eyebrows. More excitingly, this became the first direct mention of Infinity Stones (changed from Gems as in the comics). At last, the scene was a major confirmation that Marvel was heading towards the Infinity Gauntlet saga and that Thanos’s teased appearance was queueing one heck of a story. Anticipation for each subsequent Marvel movie only increased, with fans trying to guess which would feature the next Infinity Stone and which Stones had already appeared.
Thus, even with competition, Marvel Studios had to feel strong and unstoppable at this point. With a strong 2014 film slate coming, Marvel also announced a set of TV shows for Netflix. These shows would feature other reclaimed characters that Marvel wasn’t ready to bring to film, including most notably Daredevil. The MCU’s reach was only expanding.
That said, the Marvel One-Shot unknowingly came to an end on Thor: The Dark World‘s home release. The release featured the short film All Hail the King, which saw the return of Ben Kingsley’s Trevor Slattery in a humorous expansion of the character that also served as fan service by retconning the Mandarin reveal. The short explained there was a “real” Mandarin out there displeased by Slattery’s impersonation. This was incongruent to Black’s storytelling, but it assuaged those angered at Iron Man 3. Still, Marvel no longer needed the One-Shots after this due to expanding to TV. Marvel was already everywhere.
Likelihood of Doomsday Connection: Medium
Thor and Loki are both already confirmed to return in Doomsday. As we said in Thor‘s entry, most of the other characters are long out of the MCU. Maybe Portman’s Foster will be back. Eccleston and the Dark Elves were particularly forgettable and won’t be returning.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
Spoilers! 2014 is considered one of the best years in Marvel cinema. The two MCU movies are often rated as the MCU’s crown jewels, and many consider Fox’s X-Men movie to be king of its franchise. This is especially notable given most considered Guardians of the Galaxy to be a massive risk, featuring the most obscure Marvel characters to date in any film.
But first was the much less-risky Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Captain America was already one of the more popular Avengers relatively speaking, and Chris Evans‘s portrayal in the prior two films earned the most acclaim alongside Downey. People were more than ready to see a Cap solo outing set in the modern world.
By this time, Kevin Feige was quite conscious about wanting to bring diverse genres to the MCU and giving filmmakers more leeway to leave a directorial stamp. As The Dark World proved, this was a difficult prospect given that Marvel needed each movie to serve a larger purpose, but Feige determined to do better.
It all started on The Winter Soldier with rehiring Markus and McFeely, who did a notably good job at writing the period WW2 superhero film that was the first Captain America. Feige felt this was a great example of the MCU stretching genres, and this time Feige wanted to make a 70s spy thriller. He set the pair to work in mid-2011, preparing for Phase Two alongside the many other creatives as the release of Phase One was still rolling out.
After months of bouncing ideas back and forth with Marvel, the pair arrived at a tale that pitted the old-fashioned moralism of Steve Rogers against the more cynical and morally-complicated present. They decided to avoid most time-displacement humor and wanted to ground the film in a believable reality that eschewed the fantasy elements of The Avengers. They took time to adapt “The Winter Soldier” storyline, taking inspiration on how to execute it from spy thrillers like Three Days of the Condor, The Parallax View, and Marathon Man. Indeed, they leaned heavily on Three Days of the Condor for story structure while throwing in the comics element of the Winter Soldier twist.
Even with all of these influences, the pair still struggled developing the third act. Feige saved the day by suggesting it feature the fall of SHIELD and revealing that HYDRA lived on after the first movie. It was a major decision to say the least, and one that would have lasting ramifications on the MCU moving forward. This let the duo figure out the end of the story, though the inclusion of Arnim Zola proved challenging as the heaviest sci-fi element in a more down-to-Earth tale.
Feige also suggested the inclusion of Nick Fury and Black Widow because these characters lacked solo movies, and because Cap lacked supporting characters given that he was displaced from his time. Marvel even wanted to bring in Jeremy Renner‘s Hawkeye, though they couldn’t figure out a unique writing purpose for him and Renner’s schedule got in the way regardless.
With a general story set, next came securing a director. Marvel’s hunt narrowed to three choices by early 2012, and then one choice, F. Gary Gray, removed himself from the process to direct Straight Outta Compton. A two-horse race came down to who had a better pitch. The winning pair, Anthony and Joe Russo, distinguished themselves in the audition process. They were an unorthodox choice, with their experience largely limited to TV comedies like Community.
Feige was initially attracted to them because of their genre parody episode of Community, “For a Few Paintballs More.” After they were allowed to read the script, the Russos spent two months storyboarding, rewriting scenes, and creating an animatic to showcase their vision for the film. It was this that won them the job and started the MCU’s arguably most notable creative partnership.
Within their winning pitch was the idea to focus on the modern surveillance state and drone warfare. The Russos felt it was impossible to create a political spy thriller that wasn’t topical in some way, and with the Snowden NSA leaks making news headlines at the time, they had ample opportunity to recall Captain America’s older ideals. Marvel officially announced their hiring of the directors and the sequel title at 2012 Comic Con, and added that they would continue their partnership with Cleveland and film there.
They also began hiring cast members. While much of the cast merely reprising roles from earlier MCU movies, Anthony Mackie joined as a new character, Sam Wilson/The Falcon, after narrowly missing on playing the Mandarin. Perhaps this was a better outcome. Two other new characters were Brock Rumlow and potential love interest Sharon Carter. For Rumlow, Marvel considered actors both familiar and unfamiliar to superhero flicks like Kevin Durand, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, and Josh Holloway. But the part ultimately went to Frank Grillo, who’d built a reputation for action cinema in the early 2010s. As for Sharon, Emilia Clarke again came under consideration, as well as Teresa Palmer, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Alison Brie (sharing the Community connection with the Russos). But Emily VanCamp won the part in the end, based on her work on the TV show Revenge. Hayley Atwell also returned as a much older version of Peggy Carter, ahead of a confirmed Agent Carter TV show.
One of the more eye-raising castings was that of Robert Redford, who joined as a high-ranking SHIELD agent. The Russos were inspired to cast him as an homage to Three Days of Condor, and to ape Henry Fonda‘s casting in Once Upon a Time in the West by having a mostly heroic actor play a villainous role. Redford was intrigued to see what this new form of filmmaking was like. Former UFC fighter Georges St-Pierre joined as a minor villain, Batroc, bringing a physicality to that role. Garry Shandling and Maximiliano Hernandez also reprised their earlier, smaller Marvel roles to further add to the universe.
Filming took place throughout 2013 not only in Cleveland but in California and Washington D.C. as well, with most of the film set in the latter city. In order to more accurately capture the 70s feeling, the Russos aimed to shoot everything practically when possible and to minimize special effects. This included shooting longer takes on action sequences and spending months choreographing realistic fights to sustain such scenes. The Russos were inspired by Heat and Brian De Palma to create action that had grit and consequences. Still, even minimizing special effects in a modern blockbuster involved six different visual effects companies to create the 2500 visual effects shots. The costume team also designed a new Captain America outfit to fit the modern spy aesthetic.
Once the film entered post, the Russos notably edited the film at their trailer on the Community set. They also conducted reshoots once Joss Whedon shared the second Avengers script in order to coordinate the ending of their film with the beginning of that one. Whedon also shot the mid-credits scene, as everything was directly leading into the second Avengers.
Marketing began in summer 2013 and lasted until the film’s 2014 release. Marvel used teaser posters, trailers, and Comic Con panels to build hype and showcase where the movie was heading. Also notable was a new tactic of releasing a “teaser” for the trailer the day prior, a practice that soon became standard in Hollywood marketing. Video games and Disneyland appearances also became part of the marketing machine.
Finally, April 2014 arrived. Continuing the post-Avengers trend, Captain America: The Winter Soldier outpaced its predecessor, earning $95 million in its opening weekend and setting April records for the time. It had a sustained run and finished the year as the fifth highest-grossing title, earning $714.4 million in total. It seemed Marvel Studios couldn’t miss at the box office.
For the first time since The Avengers, there was universal critical acclaim. Sporting a 90% Tomatometer and 91 Flickscore, the movie pleased many with its choice to reduce CGI spectacle and offer harder-nosed action. Many noted the more realistic fight choreography, and some even compared it to The Dark Knight in terms of its topicality. The few negative reviews felt it lost steam and failed to take risks despite its “spicy premise.” Regardless of the few detractors, Feige and company felt they accomplished what they wanted by diversifying the MCU language and genres at play. This didn’t resolve the debate over whether the MCU could allow diversity or not, but it seemed a punch in that direction. It remains one of the most widely-praised MCU movies.
The ramifications for the MCU as a whole left fans wondering, though. With SHIELD’s apparent demise, where would the next MCU movies go? Importantly for fans of the TV show, how could Agents of SHIELD continue? The show answered that with its most critically-acclaimed episode to date and a ratings smash, as the effects of Winter Soldier massively changed the show’s story direction and allowed the show to come into its own. In a rare one-off appearance, Samuel L. Jackson‘s Nick Fury even cameoed in the season finale. Thus, while leaving the show’s premise in a much different place, the MCU’s synergy with its TV side reached its zenith.
As for the post-credits scenes, this was the first time that both of them were serious in tone and advanced plot points. The second scene was minor, to be fair, but it revealed that Sebastian Stan‘s Bucky/The Winter Soldier would return and was regaining his memory, setting up a third Captain America film. The first scene was the bigger tease, revealing the first new additions to the Avengers sequel: Elizabeth Olsen‘s Scarlet Witch and Aaron Taylor-Johnson‘s Quicksilver. These siblings were villains and then Avengers in the comics, full of narrative potential. They were also mutants, though as Fox still held those rights, the scene teasingly called them “miracles” instead.
Did this mean there was a potential X-Men crossover coming? Well, the casting news for that summer’s X-Men: Days of Future Past seemingly put that to bed, yet the rumor mill still stirred. Anything was possible with time travel.
As the first three Phase Two releases proved, the MCU was in a different place than when it began. Each sequel well outpaced its predecessors, regardless of critical quality, indicating a clear buy-in from fans. They were hungry for more Marvel and what this interconnected universe was bringing. With The Winter Soldier, critical prestige also came, indicating that not only could Marvel build a universe but it could create top-tier action movies as well.
The last pre-Avengers MCU film loomed at the end of summer 2014. Even many dedicated comics fans were barely aware of the Guardians of the Galaxy, and they seemed a bizarre choice for this early era of the MCU. Leaping from B-list down to F-list characters hardly seemed the smartest thing choice. Many expected Marvel to fall on its face. No studio would have dared to make a movie for these characters in the past. Could the MCU brand really sustain something so odd?
Likelihood of Doomsday Connection: Medium
Captain America is, of course, returning for Doomsday. And as we speculated before, we think Peggy Carter might show up again. The Russos’ career in Marvel skyrocketed after this movie, but we’ll leave more details on that to a future article. Mackie’s Sam Wilson became a major returning element in the MCU, including taking over the role of Captain America. He will also return in Doomsday.
The only other characters worth discussing are Rumlow, Alexander Pierce, and Sharon Carter. Grillo returned as Rumlow one more time before his character died, and we don’t think he’ll get any multiverse variants, especially as he’s at DC now. Redford sadly passed last year, so despite his returning in Avengers: Endgame, we think that’s the end of the line. VanCamp’s Sharon has returned several more times and has an open plot thread from one of the MCU shows, so maybe she’ll show up, though we think it unlikely.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)
By the mid-10s, it was fairly standard for studios to commission scripts for sequels to their superhero flicks before the first entry even released. This was the case for The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and James Vanderbilt began work in 2012. While Sony was overall pleased with its first reboot, the MCU’s Phase Two cut into Sony’s seeming advantage from The Amazing Spider-Man ‘s box-office grosses. Sequels for what were once minor characters nearly matched or surpassed Spider-Man‘s grosses, as in the case of Iron Man 2.
To that end, Sony was initially unsure of whether it wanted Marc Webb to return, especially with Webb wanting more money. They finally worked out a deal, but in Sony’s uncertainty about the future it hired a trio of screenwriters to essentially rewrite Vanderbilt’s screenplay. The trio included Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, and Jeff Pinkner, who were inexplicably (judging on story quality) hot items in Hollywood. But no one could deny they were penning some of the highest-grossing films of the era.
Sony also responded to the biggest criticism of The Amazing Spider-Man: that it lacked comics authenticity due to its grimmer aesthetic and costuming. Executives pushed to change the suit and make the tone more jovial overall, while still setting up an overarching Oscorp plot that could spin off into Sinister Six movies and compete with the MCU. Perhaps one can see the warning signs already.
Casting news certainly heralded doom, with announcements that Electro, Norman Osborn, Harry Osborn, Alistair Smythe, and Rhino were all joining the movie. Sony seemed unconcerned about repeating Spider-Man 3‘s mistake of stuffing in too many villains, including ironically a Harry Osborn Green Goblin. To top it all, Sony cast Shailene Woodley as Mary Jane Watson to apparently add a second romantic figure for Peter. Apparently, Andrew Garfield also suggested casting Michael B. Jordan as a male version of MJ to explore a bisexual Peter, though Sony quickly shut that down.
Sony realized their folly, at least in part. They cut MJ entirely from the movie despite Woodley filming all of her scenes. May Parker was also sidelined, much to Sally Field’s annoyance as she later reflected her part was essentially non-existent. Unfortunately, Sony maintained the multitude of villains. Even Felicity Jones made it in as Felicia Hardy, aka Black Cat.
At least Sony hired talented actors for the roles. In a bold move, they cast Jamie Foxx as Electro, again race-swapping from the comics as they did with Kingpin a decade earlier. Perhaps Foxx added cultural cache. The crew labored intensively in creating his look, using special effects in combination for a four-and-a-half-hour makeup process.
Sony cast Chris Cooper for Norman Osborn, though seemingly mostly as set-up. Paul Giamatti of all people joined as Rhino, though this was also more of a cameo. After considering a broad swath of actors for Harry, including Sam Claflin, Brady Corbet, Boyd Holbrook, and even Michael B. Jordan, they settled on Dane DeHaan, Jordan’s Chronicle cast-mate.
Filming occurred entirely in New York State, a first for any Spider-Man movie. While they used Rochester as a stand-in for NYC more often than not, this kept production in the state’s boundaries. The crew even did all on-set filming in New York, including building a miniaturized version of Times Square.
Webb went an unorthodox route for the score once James Horner declined to return. He recruited a cadre of musicians including Pharrell Williams, Johnny Marr, Mike Einziger, Junkie XL, Steve Mazzaro, and Andrew Kawczynski to assist famed composer Hans Zimmer in crafting a score that was both cinematic and yet reflected the diversity of music trends. The results received mixed appraisal.
Marketing took off from there, with a panel at 2013 Comic Con alongside Fox and Marvel Studios. Sony also merchandised with toys and video games, but perhaps reflective of the more rushed production, they didn’t utilize as extensive a viral marketing campaign as they had for the first movie. In the urge to compete, Sony wanted to get a sequel out as quickly as possible.
May 2014 came after The Winter Soldier‘s successful turn the prior month. The opening weekend seemed to suggest continued success with Sony’s own sequel boost, as the movie earned $91.6 million, though this did not match The Winter Soldier‘s opening weekend. India was a strange source of success for the movie’s overseas take, as it earned $4.3 million there alone.
The run ended with $716.9 million, well below the first film and other recent MCU releases. This was perhaps because it critically bombed. While most critics enjoyed the cast and the emotional ending, these were the only sources of praise. It seemed the lessons of Spider-Man 3 were not learned, as this movie too was derided as an overstuffed mess with too many characters and no clear central narrative. Two films in, and the only improvement on the Raimi trilogy seemed to be the chemistry between Garfield and Stone. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 sits at 51% on Rotten Tomatoes and has a 61 Flickscore.
Sony was initially optimistic about expanding on this film, announcing third and fourth movies in 2013. Soon thereafter, Sony shared news of plans for a two-parter Sinister Six movie, a separate Venom film, a Black Cat movie, and even more. They had dollar signs in their eyes, to say the least. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 featured no traditional post-credits scene, but the ending teased the Sinister Six.
Yet once the box office numbers were in and critical derision piled up, Sony finally got the message. With creatives dropping off the sequels, they pivoted. Sony initially delayed the third movie and discussed potentially bringing back Raimi to direct a new trilogy of Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movies with plans to then cross him over into the Garfield continuity, trying to ape the MCU in a different way.
Then, Sony Pictures was hacked in November 2014. With thousands of emails leaking onto the internet, their internal secrets became public. While the after-effects of this are far more reaching than comic-book movies, it cemented Sony’s course change and led to them cancel their Sinister Six plans.
While competition from Sony wasn’t entirely removed, the failure of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 seemed to end their run as a mainline competitor and signaled the conclusion of their era of superhero filmmaking that began back in 2002. Sony’s superhero output was done in concert with Marvel Studios thereafter, though always with tension and mostly to negative results. Thus, Marvel movies continued to consolidate into the MCU, leaving Fox as the lone wolf against Disney.
Likelihood of Doomsday Connection: Medium
Most of our remarks from The Amazing Spider-Man above are applicable here. The villains originating here are the only unique additions. While Foxx’s Electro returned in Spider-Man: No Way Home, we don’t think he’ll be making it into Doomsday or Secret Wars. Giamatti’s comically-ridiculous Rhino is also likely abandoned.
Of course, Stone’s Gwen Stacy perished in this film. With Garfield’s guilt over that loss resolved in No Way Home, we think it unlikely for Stone to return. Sally Field also seems done with the role of Aunt May, and other side characters just lack the cultural presence for the MCU to want to cameo them.
X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)
Fox was ready to howl as lone wolf. As we alluded to multiple times now, Fox was inspired by the MCU’s competition in the best way when it came to their next mainline entry. After the success of X-Men: First Class, Fox prepared to launch a new trilogy with the acclaimed younger X-Men cast. Matthew Vaughn was onboard to continue directing with Bryan Singer potentially returning to produce.
This luckily coincided with prior discussions on the continuation of the franchise. Part of the delay for X4 aside from the Wolverine prequels was negotiating contracts for the series mainstays. Producer Lauren Shuler Donner discussed adapting “Days of Future Past” as far back as 2006. With First Class doing so well, Donner was able to pitch Singer on finally coming back to the series he started.
Early story planning was fruitful, with Vaughn excited and proposing the idea of the film opening with Magneto’s magnetic powers being behind the curved bullet in the Kennedy assassination. Singer meanwhile proposed a Vietnam War setting and the possibility of using the time travel inherent in the story to “change history.” He tried to reassure fans that he didn’t mean completely erasing prior films, though Fox likely had the soft reboot ideas in mind already.
Still, even with enthusiasm, creative conflicts arose. Vaughn wanted “Days of Future Past” to be the culmination of the trilogy of new movies with a middle entry featuring Tom Hardy as a younger Wolverine. Yet when Fox read Vaughn’s script, they insisted on doing “Days of Future Past” next. Thus, Vaughn sadly exited, with Fox citing his Kingsman film as the reason for leaving.
Simon Kinberg took writing duties over in November 2011 and received sole credit for the screenplay, though story credit went to a variety of people including Vaughn. Kinberg knew Fox wanted this film to clarify the future of the franchise, and he worked alongside Singer to develop a cohesive set of rules for time travel. Kinberg studied older time travel movies like Back to the Future while Singer talked to James Cameron after Singer finally agreed to return to the directing chair for the first time since X2.
Kinberg and Vaughn discussed how to adapt “Days of Future Past” for the big-screen before Vaugh left. While still using Kitty Pryde’s powers as the basis, they removed her as the central character and instead chose to make Wolverine the time traveler. They developed story reasons for this, though the obvious commercial one was that Hugh Jackman was the face of the franchise. The pair had considered using Bishop or Cable for this role, and using Rachel Summers for the time travel power instead of Kitty. They also considered including a number of other famous mutant characters like Nightcrawler, Juggernaut, and Psylocke.
After Singer took over as director, he brought back his production team from the first two films as well. He hired the same production designer, costume designer, music director, and editor. Thus, not only would this be the big crossover cast and return of franchise originals, but also the return of most of the same creatives who helped start this whole superhero craze to begin with. The question was, could they keep up with the MCU?
Singer began announcing cast members in November 2012 on Twitter. On the First Class side, Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicolas Hoult, and even Lucas Till all returned. On the original trilogy side, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Anna Paquin, Shawn Ashmore, Halle Berry, Daniel Cudmore, Kelsey Grammer (in a small secret cameo) and of course, Jackman reprised their roles.
But there were also new characters. As part of the overall push of superhero cinema to link itself to the Game of Thrones phenomenon, Peter Dinklage joined as the primary human antagonist Bolivar Trask. Further tantalizing fans were announcements of Omar Sy as Bishop and Evan Peters as Quicksilver, popular mutants who had yet to have live-action appearances.
As the post-credits for The Winter Soldier revealed, Taylor-Johnson was already playing Quicksilver in the MCU. This seemed to forestall any potential crossovers, though some fans wondered how this could happen at all. As it happened, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch sat at a very unique crossroads of rights, because the pair were notable Avengers but also Magneto’s children and thus operated in both spheres, allowing the rights to be shared between Fox and Marvel Studios. Funny how the cross-section of legalities and storytelling can work.
Thus, years before the massive crossovers the MCU had coming, Fox set the stage for the first major crossover comic-book movie event (though if you count the first Avengers as beating them to the punch, we won’t argue). The consequence of such a large cast was coordinating that many schedules, which forced filming to occur between April 2013 and November 2013. This also became Fox’s most expensive production apart from Avatar, with the constrained timeframe causing crunch time work for everyone involved.
Still, the production team wasn’t phoning it in. They put lots of time and thought into crafting the look of the different time periods. The team leaned heavily into ’70s style for the past timeline, hoping to recreate the ’70s as well as First Class did the ’60s. They created two dichotomous appearances for the movie’s other main villainous force, the robotic Sentinels. The futuristic ones were horrifying CGI, designed to look inhuman and also reflect Mystique in the origin of their powers and function. The ’70s ones, meanwhile, were clunkier and made to look retro in a fun way.
In order to accommodate the compressed timeframe, Fox hired twelve effects studios to assist, despite only having 1311 visual effects shots. One of the most lauded of the bunch was Rising Sun Pictures, who created the acclaimed Quicksilver “Time in a Bottle” sequence. Visual effects also took over for Mystique’s design, with Lawrence wearing a bodysuit as well. While some of the look was still makeup, this reduced the application time from eight hours to three.
As post-production moved towards an end, marketing entered full swing. There already had been a Comic Con panel in 2013 during filming, and they showed further footage at various other conventions in early 2014, such as CinemaCon. They also used post-credits scenes, such as the aforementioned one from The Wolverine. Yet more strange was a post-credits scene attached to The Amazing Spider-Man 2. This confused some into thinking there would be a Spider-Man/X-Men crossover to compete against the MCU, but this was merely the product of a corporate compromise as Marc Webb was contracted to do another film for Fox. Fox agreed to let Webb direct films for Sony if Sony plugged Days of Future Past.
Singer withdrew from marketing in April 2014 after further accusations of sexual abuse culminated in multiple lawsuits filed against him. While both suits were ultimately dismissed, there appeared to be some credibility as these accusations were discussed in documentaries and generated further discussions, including a claim by author Bret Easton Ellis that two of his former partners attended underage sex parties hosted by Singer and Roland Emmerich.
This was hardly what Fox wanted just a month before their big event movie released, but they had to press onwards. The accusations didn’t seem to hurt the box office. Days of Future Past debuted to an explosive opening weekend, earning $262.8 million, a franchise best. Critics raved upon release, with many considering it the best X-Men film yet, or at the least standing alongside X2. While some found it a bit overstuffed or confusing, those who were devotees of the franchise or of X-Men comics found it richly rewarding. There was a new reverence for the source material in a Fox production.
Indeed, Days of Future Past was seen as a course correction for the mistakes of The Last Stand and Origins: Wolverine with an ending that seemingly retconned away the bad choices of those movies. While not a full reboot, the timeline reset seemed to open the future of the continuity and give a satisfying ending to the original cast that The Last Stand had lacked. The movie finished with $747.9 million, a franchise-best box office. It even managed to top Avatar in many overseas territories as the highest-grossing Fox release.
Future minded, the film’s post-credits scene followed the MCU pattern of teasing the new big villain. Indeed, it appeared Apocalypse would be next, having already been announced before Days of Future Past released. This would serve as the conclusion of the new trilogy with the younger cast members, as the older cast were seemingly retired. This wasn’t the only fire in the oven, either, as Fox was setting up more spin-offs to try to capitalise on their success and keep up with the MCU.
Of final note, the home release contained an alternate edit, the Rogue Cut. Paquin’s Rogue, the original focus character of X-Men, barely appeared as a cameo in this movie. As it turned out, there was a more substantial role for her that wound up being reduced due to runtime problems. Seeing an opportunity in the home release, this alternate cut was made available. It didn’t seem to change things considerably, but it provided some extra material and slightly different plots mechanics.
While Sony was fading, Fox seemed to have found new life. Thus, even as things consolidated under the MCU, Fox kept going and seemed to have learned from their many mistakes over the years. They weren’t perfect, still rushing movies out, but a reverence for authenticity and a more measured approach were aiding them. This meant X-Men weren’t going to be part of the MCU, which seemed to cause Marvel to move away from promoting mutants, even in the comics. But perhaps maintaining competition was a good thing, as the early part of the ’10s seemed to indicate.
Likelihood of Doomsday Connection: High
As already discussed in prior articles, many of these older X-Men cast members are returning in Doomsday. Though it is unclear if the younger cast will be joining, we feel more certain that the characters who only appeared in this movie such as Bishop, Wink, Sunspot, and Trask will not appear.
Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
Guardians of the Galaxy is another example of the transformative power of the MCU. Prior to this film debuting, only the most dedicated comics fans had any idea who they were. They were far more obscure even than Iron Man, Thor or most any Marvel character who had received a cinematic adaptation at this point. When Kevin Feige announced them as the only non-sequel MCU movie prior to the second Avengers, it caused many to wonder if Marvel had lost the plot and were overestimating themselves. Certainly any character could work if written well enough, but headlining a major blockbuster was a different matter.
Fittingly, unlike any other hero who had debuted in the MCU, there was no long history of failed attempts to turn the Guardians into a film. While the original iteration of the team dated back to the late ’60s, the modern version this film used didn’t debut until 2008. And certainly they weren’t a headliner comic. They formed the team by throwing together preexisting space-faring heroes who lacked a home in the aftermath of a big crossover comics event. It did sell well enough, but it lacked a major cultural presence.
Yet the team apparently intrigued Nicole Perlman, whom we mentioned last article as a product of Marvel Studios’ writing program. In 2009 she’d been able to pick between many lesser Marvel properties to turn into a feature film script. This was Marvel’s way of starting preparations for the long-term future. Perlman was drawn to the Guardians because of the sci-fi space element. Apparently Marvel was surprised, as they had expected her to pick a romantic comedy.
Perlman spent the next two years as Phase One rolled out continually rewriting the script. She vacillated between which team members to use, including trying a draft based on the ’69 version of the team. Perlman centered the movie on Nova at one stage before Nate Moore, head of the writing program, suggested she instead focus on Star-Lord.
With this advice, Perlman found her anchor. She rewrote Star-Lord into more of a Han Solo type, included 1980s and 90s period music as a tonal element, and created the opening scene of Star-Lord on a desolate planet based on a memory of viewing a drained submarine ride at Disneyland. All throughout this period, Feige kept publicly dropping hints that he was intrigued about the Guardians becoming a movie and was excited for the MCU to expand its space side.
Feige must have seen Perlman’s scripts and decided it was worth a serious attempt. He was eager to do Marvel’s own version of Star Wars. To that end, Marvel Studios hunted for a director. They initially considered Colin Trevorrow, but he turned it down due to not being a comics fan. Peyton Reed and the directing pair of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck were also candidates.
Yet it was James Gunn who beat them all. Marvel initially talked to him in 2012 about merely assisting Perlman in script rewrites. Yet Marvel was attracted to Gunn’s maverick sensibilities and dark sense of humor as seen in Slither and Super, and they eventually offered for him to direct. Gunn agreed, but didn’t care for Perlman’s script, and asked to rewrite it. Feige acquiesced, though he admitted he was scared at what Gunn might bring back.
Luckily, Gunn’s first script was on the same page with Marvel. Joss Whedon was thrilled after reading it, convinced Gunn was the guy to make the Guardians work and noted Gunn’s love of Rocket Raccoon, an element Gunn took to the very end of the trilogy. Gunn commented many times about Rocket being his favorite character. Minor disagreements later arose about the extent Perlman’s script was used in the final movie, with Gunn stating he largely disregarded it.
As Gunn worked with Marvel on further rewrites, he reflected that the character arcs for the central five stayed the same throughout the process. Many other elements changed as Gunn altered Perlman’s script into the final form. He allegedly changed the entire story, character arcs, and added Peter Quill’s Walkman as well as altering the music references to ’60s and ’70s pop hits. One change, at Whedon’s suggestion, was the removal of Star-Lord’s father as an intergalactic emperor. In fact, Whedon’s main advice to Gunn in rewriting was to enhance the weirder elements.
Thanos was the main villain of Perlman’s script, but this changed dramatically in light of Marvel’s new plans. Gunn wanted to remove him entirely, but Marvel mandated he stay to help set up the MCU’s endgame. Thus, Gunn developed the idea that Ronan the Accuser, the new main antagonist, would kill The Other as a way of including Thanos while preserving Ronan’s threat.
Gunn also briefly wrote an origin for the Infinity Stones in his script, mostly as a fun Easter Egg among many other nods to Marvel history in the film. Yet as Marvel calcified on making the Infinity Gauntlet the MCU’s main story, they told Gunn they wanted the Power Stone to be the MacGuffin of Guardians.They actually used Gunn’s origin idea for the Stones in subsequent MCU works. Thus, Guardians became a key linchpin in the forming Infinity Saga, despite being set so far from other MCU films.
As they finalized the script in late 2012, Gunn and Marvel launched the casting process. While Gunn had discretion to use many of his favorite actors for minor characters, such as Michael Rooker as Yondu and his brother Sean as Kraglin, the search for the lead Star-Lord was important to centering Marvel’s newest gamble. They auditioned many actors including Joel Edgerton, Jack Huston, Eddie Redmayne, Michael Rosenbaum, Zachary Levi (despite appearing in Thor: The Dark World), Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Lee Pace.
Gunn was initially taken with Glenn Howerton, yet another actor ended up becoming Gunn and Marvel’s favorite: Chris Pratt. Pratt was cast in February 2013 despite no real blockbuster experience. Most knew him as the schlubby supporting player from Parks & Rec. Pratt had been trying to get into superhero movies for a long while and had missed on several prior Marvel roles and Avatar. Even Gunn was not interested until he met with Pratt, at which point Gunn was instantly convinced. In a movie that was already a risk, Gunn and Marvel decided to take a further risk on Pratt.
The rest of the Guardians followed, with Gunn continuing to make unorthodox choices. Dave Bautista beat out Isaiah Mustafa, Chadwick Boseman, and Jason Momoa (who self-removed from the process as he didn’t want to get typecast) for the part of Drax the Destroyer. It was Bautista’s first major blockbuster role after several smaller movie appearances. Bautista felt quite connected to Drax due to his athleticism and having tragedy in his life, making the four-hour makeup process more tolerable. Marvel initially cast Amanda Seyfried for Gamora, beating Lupita Nyong’o, but Seyfried turned it down after she was concerned that Guardians might be a bomb and hurt her reputation. Thus, Zoe Saldana, who had multiple sci-fi franchises under her belt at this point, took the part.
As for Groot and Rocket, makeup alone wasn’t enough for them, and they had to be created via CGI and motion capture. Sean Gunn wound up as the main stand-in for Rocket mostly by accident, as they were still figuring out how to do Rocket when filming began. He kept the role in all subsequent Marvel films, with Bradley Cooper providing the voice and some facial references. Vin Diesel took the part of Groot, providing both voice work and motion capture, though someone else stood in for him on set. Diesel found it a unique acting challenge — due to Groot only ever saying “I am Groot” — to convey many different emotions and thoughts. He leaned into his grief over losing his friend Paul Walker to fuel the emotional center of Groot.
With the heroes cast, the villains yet remained. The role of main antagonist, Ronan, went to Lee Pace after Pace missed on playing Star-Lord. Though Marvel had been considering Hugh Laurie, Alan Rickman, or Ken Watanabe for this role, Gunn was impressed enough with Pace’s acting that he wanted him in the film in some capacity. As casting finalized in summer 2013, Karen Gillan and Benicio del Toro joined as Nebula and The Collector, just in time for Del Toro to film his post-credits scene for The Dark World. Gillan was highly committed to her role, aiming for Nebula’s voice to be a simultaneous impression of Clint Eastwood and Marilyn Monroe while physically training for two months, taking inspiration from Spartan methods.
Yet perhaps the most important villain casting was that of Thanos. Despite only being in two scenes, Marvel already knew Thanos was in line for much more in subsequent movies. Gunn worked in conjunction with Feige and Whedon to find the proper actor. They quickly settled on Josh Brolin, approaching him with the pitch that he’d be more of a cameo at first before stepping up in status. Brolin was already a big MCU fan and had a prior relationship with Louis D’Esposito, and he readily agreed, providing voicework and performance capture.
Rounding out some of the minor characters were Glenn Close and Djimon Hounsou. Close wanted to be in a superhero film because she desired something as iconic and fun as Judi Dench‘s M that could diversify her career. Hounsou was inspired to be in a superhero film when his son stated he wanted to be “light-skinned” because Spider-Man was, and he wanted to show his son that black actors could be in these movies as well. Laura Haddock joined as Peter’s mother, after previously having a minor role in Captain America: The First Avenger.
Finally, with casting done, filming began in summer 2013. Marvel kept further massaging the work throughout filming to help connect it to other MCU properties, with Markus and McFeely provided finishing touches to the script. Guardians was an elaborate production, and Marvel took the job of making a space adventure seriously. Gunn aimed to do as much practically as possible, as the blowback against the abundance of CGI was already swelling by the mid-10s.
Marvel hired Brian Muir, who sculpted Darth Vader’s helmet for Star Wars, to aid in design work. They crafted many practical sets, including a massive prison with 350,000 pounds of steel. Makeup designer David White also worked extensively to bring Gunn’s vision to life, making casts of most of the actors in order to experiment. By the end, he and his team created over 2000 molds and 1000 prosthetics, including life-size models of Rocket and Groot.
Even for effects that had to be CGI, the team went above and beyond to create realism, such as figuring out new ways of animating Rocket Raccoon to make him look believable and not like a cartoon. Luma Pictures, one of the many effects studios on the film, created a new facial animation system for Thanos. Despite aiming for practicality, Guardians finished with a whopping 2750 visual effects shots, which also pushed it above budget.
Despite the MCU being a bastion of comics accuracy when possible, they continued to make further changes. Gunn originally planed to make the main MacGuffin, the Power Stone, red, as it sometimes is in the comics. Yet because the MCU decided to retcon the red Aether from Thor: The Dark World into a Infinity Stone, they forced Gunn to change the Power Stone to purple. They also settled on changing Drax to grey from green to avoid him looking too much like Hulk. Marvel was forced the change the race of Ronan’s goons to Sakaaran from the Badoon, as Fox held the rights to the Badoon.
Filming concluded in late 2013 and post-production continued through mid-2014. Gunn and Marvel began marketing the film at Comic Con 2013, launching an extensive campaign from there. A property like this needed all the help it could get. Creating a perfect first trailer was important, and the trailer was a smash success, garnering 22.8 million views within its first twenty-fours.
Part of the trailer’s success was the music. A centering feature was Blue Swede’s “Hooked on a Feeling,” which had a 700% increase in sales following the trailer’s release. Gunn was pleased because Disney almost went with a different, “cheesier” version of the trailer. This one made the music element prominent, which Gunn used as an anchoring point for the movie’s emotional beats. In combination with an extensive digital marketing campaign, confidence built that a movie based on a “bunch of a-holes” (a line initially only in the trailers that made it into the film based on audience response) might actually be a success.
August 2014 finally arrived, and Marvel’s next big test was here. They’d launched a cinematic universe. They’d proved a crossover film could succeed. Now, the MCU would see how obscure they could get before they lost audiences. If this failed, perhaps the MCU would be too fearful to dig too deep and wouldn’t go beyond B- or C- list characters moving forward.
Luckily for fans of obscurities, Guardians of the Galaxy was an unexpected smash hit. Even its Thursday night preview screenings (now an industry staple two years after the tragic Dark Knight Rises midnight shooting), beat out Winter Soldier. Word of mouth was strong and Guardians set the August opening weekend record, garnering $160.7 million as the weekend concluded.
Critics raved, with many loving the irreverent, zany foray into superhero cinema that combined heart and spectacle in equal measure. Many positively compared it to Star Wars, feeling it was the best movie in that vein in a long, long time. A minority of critics felt it was overstuffed and too laden with jokes and pop culture references, but it has gone on to be considered one of the peak MCU movies, with some still calling it the MCU’s best film.
Certainly audiences loved it. It livened up the box office in an unconventional run, demonstrating staying power by being #1 in non-consecutive weekends and tying The Dark Knight for most weekends at #1 for a comic book movie at four, even beating The Avengers to that mark. It also had the biggest female audience of a MCU film yet, with 44% of the audience women. Guardians wound up as the third-highest grossing 2014 film, finishing with $773.3 million. Not only had it defied expectations, it blew them out of the water.
Central in the film’s praise was the clever use of music which anchored many emotional moments and connected audiences. Gunn included the music to ground Peter as an Earth character, as Perlman’s original script had. He took the process of picking songs seriously, going through hundreds of candidates until he found the ones that worked best. The effort paid off. The soundtrack album topped the Billboard 200, the first soundtrack album composed of established songs ever to do so. Clearly, people were hooked on the feelings that perfectly picked pop music can generate.
While the post-credits for Guardians surprisingly did little to tease anything in the MCU’s future, other than Groot’s return, it did feature a surprising cameo: the Collector in his ruined museum is licked by Cosmo the Space-Dog (who would eventually return) when an unseen voice comments on how disgusting the lick was. The voice is revealed to be none other than Howard the Duck, the feathered superhero who started it all for this article series and for Marvel’s big-screen presence. Gunn certainly has a love for minor characters, though Howard wasn’t actually in the scene initially and was added as a last minute cameo in post-production.
With 2014 wrapping, the MCU kept proving it was unstoppable. Every big gamble Marvel Studios made paid off. They’d launched The Avengers. A series of successful sequels released, even with some early critical backlash. And 2014 brought a pair of movies ranking among the best of their genre. Not only was the commercial aspect working with audience buy-in, the MCU had grown in prestige.
Was it enough to stand alongside The Dark Knight? Opinions varied, but certainly Warner Bros was taking cues from Disney, now rushing its own DC cinematic universe into existence rather than vice versa. But before this era could truly wrap, there was one more Marvel film coming that one many may be surprised to learn is Marvel at all.
Likelihood of Doomsday Connection: Medium-High
The Guardians had quite a journey ahead after this film. Though they became part of the crossover Avengers movies in a big way, their trilogy had a fairly self-contained conclusion that added a sense of finality to many of the characters that is mostly lacking with other MCU heroes. Thus many of these characters probably will not be coming to Doomsday, despite being around in the canon.
That said, Star-Lord seems highly likely to return based on how Vol. 3 ended. As for the rest, there may be a very small chance of Rocket or Groot showing up. We’ll leave further comments on the Guardians for their last film. The villains specific to this movie don’t seem likely to come back, though. Ronan and Korvath did appear in Captain Marvel since it was a prequel movie, but their characters are dead. Maybe Del Toro’s Collector will get a small cameo, since his fate is unclear.
Big Hero 6 (2014)
In our first article series crossover, the surprise closer of this era is Big Hero 6. That’s right, Walt Disney Animation Studios made a Marvel movie. Though if you didn’t know that, no one would blame you.
The superhero team this movie is based on are another fairly obscure property. The team launched in the late ’90s as a means of grouping several Japanese superheroes together on one team. A Japanese Avengers, if you will. They were meant to spin off from another comic, Alpha Flight, though publishing errors led to their miniseries debuting first. They were never a high-profile comic or team, but they did feature several direct X-Men connections that made them slightly more known than the Guardians.
Still, like the Guardians, there was never a push to adapt them to the big screen before Disney acquired Marvel. But as a matter of corporate synergy, once the acquisition occurred, CEO Bob Iger encouraged other branches of Disney outside of Marvel Studios to explore developing Marvel IP. He specifically suggested looking for the obscure characters that wouldn’t interfere with the MCU and that they could reinvent without upsetting any sizable amount of fans.
Director Don Hall followed Iger’s direction while he was wrapping work on Winnie the Pooh (2011). Scrolling through the Marvel database, he found the Big Hero 6 comics and was immediately intrigued. He pitched development of Big Hero 6 to John Lassoer, chief creative officer of Disney Animation at the time, and it was the winning idea among several other pitches.
Disney announced development of Big Hero 6 in June 2012 right at the height of The Avengers release. Unlike the live-action properties, comic authenticity was not a concern here, and story head Paul Briggs and screenwriter Robert L. Baird made no attempt at fidelity. Baird didn’t even bother reading any of the comics.
Despite the MCU taking off in a big way, development of Big Hero 6 remained confined entirely in the animation studios with no plans of crossing anything over, allowing it to exist in its own ecosphere of creative development. Despite Disney consulting comics creatives like Joe Quesada and Jeph Loeb, there were reports of corporate friction with Disney’s direction on the property. Allegedly, Marvel railed against Disney’s plans to reprint Big Hero 6 comics, though Lasseter dismissed any idea that the movie was causing a rift and stated that Marvel let Disney have complete creative freedom.
Indeed, Animation Studio President Andrew Millstein commented that they leaned more into Pixar DNA for the storytelling. The creative team also turned to Studio Ghibli and other Japanese manga/anime for inspiration as well. Hall felt this was crucial for creating an original look for the movie’s central robot, Baymax. Due to the plethora of iconic pop culture bots, Hall and his team combined this multitude of influences to try to create something that stood out, reviewing The Wind Rises, Spirited Away, Wall-E, Pokemon, and mecha anime like Eureka Seven.
The crew also visited the DARPA-funded robotics team at Carnegie Mellon University to get an idea of where the cutting edge in “soft robotics” was at. Artist Lisa Keene stated from the beginning of the design process that Baymax should be “huggable.” This philosophy led to his final look being vinyl-based. This helped them balance the idea of friendliness with the concept that Baymax still had an intimidating quality to him. The result was something quite far-flung from its comics origins, but certainly in the vein of modern Disney.
Script debates occurred alongside the design struggles. Early drafts didn’t introduce Baymax until much later in the film, but once story artist John Ripa developed a way to introduce the bot earlier, the entire writing crew felt the story strengthened considerably, even if it required extensive rewrites to the first act. Another minor script squabble occurred when Lasseter wanted to excise Baymax’s description of a cat as a “hairy baby,” though he later admitted he was wrong after it did well in test screenings. It’s now one of the film’s more iconic comedic lines.
Among the many deviations from the comics was the film’s setting of San Fransokyo. Created exclusively for the movie, this city combined eastern and western culture/art and was a way for the team to have fun with a new setting. The comic was set in Tokyo but Disney felt Marvel rarely utilized San Francisco. A fictional city was a way to combine both worlds, literally.
Animation and overall production lasted the better part of two years. It led to Disney developing a new hyper-advanced rendering system called Hyperion that required so much computing power it needed 2300 workstations that each held a pair of 300 GB solid-state drives and backed on a central storage system with a capacity of five petabytes. Talk about powerful.
At last Big Hero 6‘s production concluded and it was on deck as Disney’s follow-up to their biggest hit in years, Frozen. Disney hoped to ride the momentum of that film and Marvel mania to box-office success.
Big Hero 6 opened in November 2014 to $56.2 million in its opening weekend in North America, just ahead of Interstellar, which debuted the same weekend. Marvel got to best Christopher Nolan again, if indirectly. Though Interstellar did beat it after accounting for international grosses.
But Disney hardly cared about that as Big Hero 6 finished at $657.8 million total, becoming one of the highest-grossing animated movies of all-time. Critics also raved with a 90% Rotten Tomatoes score, and Flickchart users also mostly enjoy it, as it boasts a 79 Flickscore. Many found it a touching and exciting movie and another staple in the modern Disney lineup, part of a revived era for Disney Animation after a lackluster ’00s. It has gone on to merchandising galore, including an entire land at Disney California Adventure Park.
While there was no crossover with the MCU, the filmmakers were inspired by the comics connection and realized they should do a post-credits scene after seeing Guardians of the Galaxy. Thus, very late in production, they added one featuring legendary comics creator Stan Lee in a voice cameo. Even if the movie was far removed from its comics roots, the Lee cameo speaks to the movie’s connection to Marvel history.
Likelihood of Doomsday Connection: None
This is our most confident statement of no connection we can make. The film is simply in its own realm outside of other Marvel productions. The Disney Animation wing of Disney did its own thing with the material, and other than its inherent source material, it really isn’t a Marvel product. Doomsday is going to stick to live-action Marvel for its cameos.
With 2014 ending, Marvel Studios’ peak kept rising. Box-office numbers universally rose after The Avengers and Marvel created some of their best movies. Sony’s attempts to compete ultimately faltered, setting the stage for shrewd negotiation to bring Marvel’s flagship character, Spider-Man, into the MCU fold. While Fox remaining stalwart was unfortunate for those wanting a truly united universe, competition mostly had a positive effect, boosting the quality of Fox’s output. Fox’s upcoming Marvel slate seemed to be responding to audience expectations.
One could say the mid-’10s were a golden era for comic-book movies. Anticipation for the Avengers sequel kept swelling, as well as what lay beyond with the Infinity Stones and Thanos. Even with a few Phase Two films having more uneven response, the MCU was a juggernaut at this point. It took an obscurity like Guardians of the Galaxy and launched them into mainstream pop culture. There was now an MCU TV show connecting with the movies, and more shows on the way. Even Disney animation was getting in on the Marvel brand. It was a Marvel world now.
Still, if there was any conflict left, it was the growing critique of MCU sameness. With ten movies under their belt, there was a minority, if a vocal one, already fed up with the light jokey tone and Whedonification of the movies. Feige, for his part, felt the MCU diversified in 2014 with Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy. While many agreed the MCU was showing genre flexibility, some still stated those attempts at genre swap were facile at best and that the formula was still there. For those wanting something different, they were ready to support what looked like an emerging competitor in the Zack Snyder-helmed DCEU.
But as the next era came, the MCU planned to stay on top. The Avengers sequel was opening up 2015 and then Phase Two was wrapping with the long-awaited Ant-Man before Phase Three opened with another big event movie, Captain America: Civil War. Whether this successfully built a cohesive narrative towards the Infinity Gauntlet or not, Feige was determined to make each individual film work. Hopefully, the process wouldn’t get away from them. Fox was lining up its own array of competition, including what looked like a much more accurate interpretation of Deadpool and concluding its prequel and Wolverine trilogies by adapting some of the most prestigious X-Men stories from the comics.
Could Fox or the DCEU get the edge? Or was Marvel Studios going to become the only show in town? Only time would tell if Marvel could keep it going or if the entire project would fall on its face from excess. Many had failed before from the same problem. Marvel Studios needed to prove it was different.
Ranking Era Five
It seems like each era has been better than the next once the MCU took off. Whether that trend remains or not, Era Five is chock full of excellent movies. While there are a few duds, the lows here are nowhere as bad as they once were. The studios seemed to finally crack the superhero formula and the lesser attempts from here were usually due to rushing things, rather than being a total mess.
#9: The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (Flickscore 61)
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 deserves the bottom spot of this era. While it wisely course-corrects from some of the needlessly moodier choices of the reboot, it doesn’t eject them completely, resulting in a weird tonal mishmash of Spidey being a fun superhero with scenes where the dark Oscorp conspiracy plot continues. The script also poorly juggles the competing plot threads of Electro, Harry Osborn, and Spidey’s rocky relationship with Gwen Stacy.
Speaking of, Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield remain highlights with their chemistry sparking. Yet, the story separates them a bunch, trying to wrestle with the implications of Peter making a promise to the dying Captain Stacy while also developing the romance further. It is simply too disjointed to function properly and thus botches the impact Gwen’s death ought to have in the end, as effectively acted as a scene that it is. Toss in the goofy Rhino bookends, the rushed Harry Goblin transformation, and strange socially awkward Electro who keeps getting sidelined in his own movie, and the result is a mess. It is funny to see BJ Novak for five seconds as another snide corporate jerk.
#8: Thor: The Dark World (Flickscore 67)
Thor: The Dark World hardly fares better and was rightfully considered the worst MCU movie for a long time. Many exaggerate the dullness of Marvel villains, but Malekith is the epitome of bland. The Dark Elves are built up as this looming ancient threat, yet their motivations are flat and undeveloped. Christopher Eccleston isn’t allowed to do anything with the role, making the central drama lacking.
The inverse from the first Thor with Jane coming to Asgard as the fish out of water has some promise, yet that is a sadly underbaked aspect of the story. As are most of the dramatic threads, such as Thor wisely challenging Odin’s decision-making, Thor wrestling with his responsibility as future king and his romantic interests, Lady Sif’s seeming jealousy of Jane, and Frigga’s final scenes with her son.
Just what is in this movie instead? Bad comedy with Stellan Skarsgard and Kat Dennings. Washed-out ugly frames of Malekith monologuing in a fake language. Many lackluster fight scenes. The redemptive factor is Loki, of course. When Tom Hiddleston is onscreen with Thor, the movie pops with the brotherly rivalry naturally bringing good drama and intrigue. A shame this couldn’t have been centered even more. And the final convergence battle is admittedly whacky enough to entertain as comic-book action.
#7: The Amazing Spider-Man (Flickscore 72)
The first Spider-Man reboot has promise. Garfield nails the Spidey in costume aspect better than Tobey Maguire ever did, with smart-aleck jokes galore. A scene where he takes down a thug is a highlight of how Spidey ought to behave. More time is spent with Peter as a high school student and the film really emphasizes the school’s reaction to Peter when he loses Uncle Ben. As aforementioned, Peter and Gwen are full of chemistry and serve as a solid emotional anchor for the movie.
But this also gets so much wrong. The darker tone and push for realism don’t work that well with a fantastical character like Spider-Man. The “grimdark” aesthetic just ends up robbing the film of joy, and clashes with the Saturday morning cartoon villain that is The Lizard. The movie wants a serious spy espionage backstory while also having The Lizard’s plan be to gas the whole city and turn them into lizards. The film also retypes Peter into an emo skater type that gets the girl right away, which doesn’t feel like an accurate representation of Parker’s underdog qualities.
Worse, it feels a rushed retread of the origin plot beats from Spider-Man. While Sally Field and Martin Sheen are decent replacements for May and Ben, the script seems to recognize the repetitiveness of what it’s doing and tries to change things, yet still feels obliged to include the same story points. The result is a butchered rewording of “With great power comes great responsibility,” the film flying through Ben dying and Peter deciding to be a hero, and something altogether underwhelming. Plus, the decision to have Peter promise Captain Stacy to leave Gwen alone in the end, only for the movie to immediately undercut the choice, still rubs the wrong way and makes Peter look horrible.
The Amazing Spider-Man is hardly the worst movie, but it is firmly mid-tier.
#6: The Wolverine (Flickscore 71)
The Wolverine might be among the most unheralded entries in the Marvel canon. To be fair, the third act is a mess. As other critics noted, it reeks of studio interference and becomes Wolverine fighting a cartoonish giant samurai while the Viper character also acts like she’s from a different medium as she fights Yukio. The late plot-twist also wrecks part of the movie’s logic if you think about it too long.
But until that point, the movie was James Mangold’s glorious warmup to Logan. He gets to wrestle with Logan’s trauma the most in-depth yet, providing the one true continuation of The Last Stand‘s events (Days of Future Past wipes it from canon) as Wolverine mourns killing Jean Grey and is tormented by a life of guilt. The Japanese aesthetic suits Logan well, fitting him neatly into the ronin archetype.
Mangold adds a noir touch as well with the mystery element and yazuka coming after Logan and his allies. The fight on the bullet train is a thrilling one and seeing characters dueling with katana throughout all adds to the movie’s aura. Hugh Jackman really gets to let loose in many ways, making this a fine duology with Logan. But more on that film in a future article.
#5: Big Hero 6 (Flickscore 79)
Disney’s foray into Marvel filmmaking is a real blast. With bright colorful animation and strong worldbuilding, San Fransokyo leaps into glorious being and instantly becomes an iconic Disney location. Baymax also joins the canon of lovable companions, his ignorance quite cute and perfectly tailored to be amusing to people of all ages.
Big Hero 6 also wrestles with some important questions about guilt, responsibility, and revenge. The movie lets its lead character, Hiro, go to some fairly dark places for a children’s movie as he comes close to making a mistake he can’t take back. As contrasted against the lead villain’s arc, this is some really strong character writing throughout.
The biggest flaws of it are a somewhat flatter plot on the whole and falling into the tropes of the genre. Most of the side characters feel far more disposable than they ought to. It also plays into the modern Disney humor that feels a little lacking and leaning on goofiness for laughs instead of actual jokes. These things all hold Big Hero 6 back from being one of the true greats, though it’s still a more than good movie.
#4: Iron Man 3 (Flickscore 77)
This may be a divisive one, but we say Iron Man 3 is unfairly demonized for the twist. Certainly, there is a fair argument to be made about the way it undercuts some of the stakes from earlier in the movie. But we think more of this anger comes from deviation from source material than actual criticism of the writing.
The twist feeds quite well into a Phase Two theme of things not seeming to be what they are and looking deeper under the surface. The criticism of using symbols to distract is well taken and also mirrors Tony’s own arc in the movie of finding value past his armor. On that front, the movie wisely gives weight to The Avengers by having Tony suffer from PTSD after this life-changing battle, something Robert Downey Jr. plays quite well.
Plus, some of the film’s best scenes are with Tony on the run, forced to rely on his mind to solve problems instead of just magical armor. His dynamic with Harley Keener is a highlight, especially with the darker turns the humor goes. It’s a shame the MCU more or less forgets this kid (replacing him with Peter Parker essentially) as there was something there. Shane Black’s humor and direction overall give Iron Man 3 a nice edge and his willingness to be creative with action scenes helps it stand out. The sky dive rescue is still an MCU highlight.
#3: X-Men: Days of Future Past (Flickscore 86)
Days of Future Past can rightfully claim its place as the best of the mainline X-Men movies. While a near thing with X2, we think Days of Future Past narrowly takes it due to the expanse of its story and themes. It threatens to be overstuffed and certainly sidelines the future timeline overall, meaning longtime features of the franchise like Storm and Ian McKellan’s Magneto don’t do much sadly.
But the characters that it does focus on are developed wonderfully. Some may complain the story is too focused on Mystique because of Jennifer Lawrence’s popularity, yet centering the entire conflict on one character’s moral choice and turning away from revenge is exactly what was needed for a franchise that is at its best when examining ethical dilemmas. The conceit of using the less than diplomatic Logan to play diplomat and convince the younger more conflicted versions of Xavier and Magneto to work together is both comedic and yet thematically fitting as it causes all of the characters to be pushed out of their comfort zones and have meaningful arcs.
The weight of the doomed future and power of the Sentinels is really felt as well. The film is chock full of excellent moments from the famed Quicksilver “Time in a Bottle” scene, to past and future Charles talking in a brilliantly acted scene between James McAvoy and Patrick Stewart, and Michael Fassbender’s Magneto continuing to be an excellent wild card. The movie thrills and touches in equal measure and was a fun send-off for the elder X-Men cast at the time.
#2: Guardians of the Galaxy (Flickscore 92)
Some would call this the peak Marvel movie and we wouldn’t argue with them too much. It’s only second-place here because we think there is one just slightly better. But Guardians of the Galaxy remains infinitely watchable. It has to start from ground zero in building up its team, unlike The Avengers, but James Gunn does the job, creating a cast of lovable misfits that we can’t help but empathize with by closing credits. The casting is nigh pitch perfect with the first battle scene they have with each other being not only well-designed and fun action but also showcasing the character’s personalities and ways of interacting.
Gunn doesn’t waste a beat of runtime either, propelling the story along even while developing the divergent backstories and motivations. The bright colorful space aesthetic also manages to stand out in the crowd of MCU movies at this point. Speaking of beats, the soundtrack continues to live up to reputation. Each song matches its moment perfectly. From “Escape (The Pina Colada Song)” perfectly punctuating Star-Lord’s final escape from a space prison, to “Cherry Bomb” underscoring a nice satirical tease at the superhero final battle slow walk shot, and “Come and Get Your Love” setting the tone for the movie from the start, this remains Marvel’s best soundtrack.
Best of all, Guardians is just dang funny. While Gunn’s style of humor has its weak points and can get long in the tooth if you watch too much of his material, it is all used in just the right measures and portions here. Drax’s overly literal take on things (sadly changed in the sequels), Rocket’s carefree anarchic glee, and the abundance of situational humor all keep you laughing.
Guardians is an almost perfect space adventure movie. While still leaning into quippy dialogue, we do think it stands out and feels distinct from many of the prior and subsequent MCU flicks. Its humor is a little less slick, more jaded, and the script shows a love for its characters in a way most Marvel movies fall short on. Heck, even the basic zealous villain Ronan works well because of Lee Pace giving it his all and Gunn writing him in a way to stand out against Thanos. Speaking of, this movie manages the rare feat of setting up further MCU films without bogging itself down in exposition and side-plots. Well done Gunn.
#1: Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Flickscore 91)
Captain America: The Winter Soldier remains Marvel’s finest work in this reviewer’s eyes, even twelve years later. No, it may not be that much like Three Days of the Condor or the spy movies it draws inspiration from. There’s much more action and jokes. But it also stands out in the MCU canon as a more grounded work and for talking about real political issues.
Indeed, The Winter Solder asks an enduring societal question: how much freedom are we willing to sacrifice for security? The Russo’s had something to say about where America was headed in 2014 and used a character like Captain America to say it. Roger’s old-fashioned idealism and unwavering principles let him be the moral test for the morally grey friends around him like Nick Fury and Black Widow, who’d become used to collateral damage and taking what they deemed as “necessary risks” to do their mission.
The movie’s big HYDRA reveal is still a heck of a moment, even after knowing its coming, though the first time watch made it quite a shock in what was still a fairly young MCU at the time. It demonstrated Marvel wasn’t afraid to shake up its status quo at the time and allow the universe room to do drastic storytelling choices that had lasting effects on the other films. In other words, this was a time of peak interconnected storytelling for the MCU.
Outside of the strong storytelling, thematic work, and character arcs, The Winter Soldier is also a really well-designed action film. One can tell the care that went into most of the action scenes right from the start. The hand-to-hand fight between Captain America and Batroc has an immediacy and sense of danger to it because the fight choreography has actual weight to it. It’s designed to work without cuts to hide the fake blows, a principle carried to the rest of the movie. From the famed elevator fight, to Nick Fury’s car chase, and the two big battles with The Winter Soldier, this has many of the MCU’s best-designed action sequences.
This is the movie that let Chris Evans really get to shine as an actor too. Between being firm against SHIELD, to the pain of learning Bucky survived and became a monster, his brief moment sitting with his lost love Peggy, and even great comedic timing, this film really let Evans claim the character as his own. The movie sadly continues to feel relevant today, as America in 2026 continues to wrestle with eternal battle between security and freedom. Watching this is always a reminder we could use a little more of Captain America today and why we still love superheroes.
Marvel Chart
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
Spider-Man 2 (2004)
The Avengers (2012)
X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)
Iron Man (2008)
X2: X-Men United (2003)
X-Men: First Class (2011)
Iron Man 3 (2013)
Big Hero 6 (2014)
Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
Spider-Man (2002)
X-Men (2000)
Thor (2011)
The Wolverine (2013)
Blade (1998)
The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Iron Man 2 (2010)
Spider-Man 3 (2007)
X-Men: The Last Stand (2007)
Thor: The Dark World (2013)
The Punisher (2004)
Hulk (2003)
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)
Blade II (2002)
Daredevil (2003)
Blade: Trinity (2004)
Fantastic Four (1994)
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007)
Fantastic Four (2005)
The Punisher (1989)
Ghost Rider (2007)
Howard the Duck (1986)
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2012)
Punisher: War Zone (2008)
Captain America (1990)
Elektra (2005)
