The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a collection of superhero movies that together make the world’s highest grossing film franchise, with over $17.5 billion grossed to date. The first film, Iron Man, was released in 2008 and since then a further 19 films have been released, with all them proving to be huge hits at the box office. With more films in production, the franchise certainly shows no signs of slowing down any time soon, so what does the future hold for it?
Confirmed films
2018 has seen the release of three Marvel films: Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War and Ant-Man and the Wasp. 2019 will see the release of a further three films: Captain Marvel, the first female-led Marvel film, which comes out in March; then in May there’s a currently untitled Avengers film that serves as the sequel to 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War; finally, there’s Spider-Man: Far From Home, which is pencilled in for a July release. There is going to be a third Guardians of the Galaxy, however production of this has been delayed and no release date has been announced. This is because of controversial tweets to do with pedophilia and rape by director James Gunn resurfacing, which resulted in Disney deciding to fire him. Disney have since said they’re happy to wait for a top-quality director to become available to oversee the production of the film. There are currently two more Marvel films set to be released in 2020, a further three in 2021 and yet another three in 2022. According to various reports, these future films could include a sequel to Black Panther, solo films for Black Widow and Blade, and a film about the Eternals.
The franchise’s longevity
Every single Marvel film has been a box office hit. Some have made more profit than others, but there’s no denying that Marvel has an excellent track record for producing films that drive people to their local cinema. The films are also generally well received by the critics: some of the earlier ones have had mixed reviews, but there’s been no single film that’s been savaged by the critics and given overwhelmingly negative reviews. Basically, Marvel can do no wrong, it would seem. But how long can the studio keep on producing these hit films for? One major advantage Marvel has is that it has so many characters to work with, so there’s potential for loads more films to come, even beyond the ones currently planned. While it’s clear there’s a long list of new films to be released, will they all continue to be big hits, or will people tire of them eventually? It seems right now that the franchise is so strong that even if a single film were to fare poorly at the box office, it wouldn’t matter so much because chances are, the next one would still be a big success; plus, so much profit has been made that a single loss-making film wouldn’t exactly be the end of the world – it would take a series of poorly performing films for the franchise to start suffering. Time will only tell if that will ever happen but for now, it’s clear that Marvel films are here to stay and aren’t going anywhere fast.
