ON THE BIG SCREEN: WHY CINEMATIC UNIVERSES NEED TO BE STOPPED
Deconstructing Hollywood’s obsession with shared universes in film, for be er or worse
SAM RAIMI’S SPIDER-MAN was one of the first movies that I watched in the cinemas. With its incredible character development, spectacular effects, as well as an all around great story that stands on its own, I left the cinema in awe, with a new found passion for film. Launched to tremendous critical and commercial success, 2002’s Spider-Man raked in $821.7 million by the end of its theatrical run and is often cited as one of the most important films in its genre.
Along with the X-Men franchise, Spider-Man as well as its two sequels paved the way for what’s to come. With many of these characters achieving stellar success on the big screen, Marvel Studios (the company that licensed many of its characters, including Spider-Man and the X-Men, to other studios), was finally ready to produce its own slate of films. Released in 2008, Marvel Studios’ first outing, Iron Man, was a massive hit for the studio, with exhilirating action sequences, incredible pacing, as well as perhaps one of the greatest casting decisions in film history. However, Marvel Studios’ ambition did not end there.
With a library of characters under its umbrella, Marvel Studios set out to do the impossible ‒ build an intricately connected series of movies that would feature characters crossing over different films and franchises, with various plot threads tying them together. Finally, Marvel Studios’ efforts culminated in 2012’s The Avengers. Critically and commercially well received, Marvel Studios’ first ensemble film raked in a total amount of $1.5 billion, and is often regarded as one of the greatest superhero films ever made. Marvel Studios’ success has since sparked the emergence of other rivals. Warner Brothers decided to stand toe to toe against Marvel Studios with its DC Comics-related intellectual propeties, whereas 20th Century Fox has expanded its own Marvel universe through various X-Men spin-offs as well as sequels in the likes of Deadpool and Dark Phoenix. Even Disney’s very own Star Wars franchise, aspired to tell stories beyond the core Skywalker saga with its first live action spinoff installment, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Most notrious of all, perhaps, was Sony’s blantant attempt in constructing its very own cinematic universe with The Amazing SpiderMan 2. (Remember that?)
What amounted was 142 minutes of poorly written, tonally inconsistent, hastily put together mess of a film. Instead of a sequel that expands on the story of Peter Parker, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was in reality Sony’s checklist of building a cinematic universe. With an overabundance of villains, set-ups that eventually went nowhere, as well as an overall lack of direction, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is the epitome of a film gone wrong due to massive studio interference. The overall reception of the film was so terrible, that the studio needed to reboot the character just two