ALEXANDER QUON

Despite being snatched right out of Marvel’s recent trailer for Ant-Man, fans of the company’s work might struggle with finding relevance in the line, “Second chances don’t come around all that often.”

Ant-Man is just one of 11 films that Marvel has in production. You heard me right — Kevin Feige, Marvel Studio’s president, has confirmed that the production company has a slate of movies planned for the silver screen until 2021. It is ironic that Hank Pym’s line could apply as much to Marvel Studios as it does to Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), in this year’s Ant-Man.

With today’s superhero films being guaranteed blockbusters, it is almost inconceivable to the average movie goer that it wasn’t long ago that Marvel and superhero films in general were avoided like the plague.

Marvel’s idea to create a universe of interconnected movies can be pointed to as one reason for the resurgence in superhero films’ popularity. Since the release of Iron Man in 2008, Marvel has been on a roll, pumping out films that have been both critically and financially successful. All of the movies in Marvel’s cinematic universe — except the severely underappreciated The Incredible Hulk — have placed in the top 200 of all-time box office revenue in Canada and the United States.

What is most remarkable about Marvel’s success has been their ability to succeed with what is typically considered B-level characters in comic books. Even Iron Man wasn’t expected to succeed like it did — but then again, hindsight is 20/20.

There is a reason that the film rights to X-men, Spiderman, Daredevil and The Fantastic Four were snapped up or bought long by studios such as Sony Pictures and 20th Century Fox before Marvel attempted to make their own films. Those brands are known quantities with a large pre-existing audience.

However, Marvel has been able to find success even without their marquee franchises. Now backed by tremendous star power — thank you Robert Downey Jr. — The Walt Disney Company and lots of source material to draw upon, Marvel hasn’t shown any signs of stopping.

Even the most die-hard comic book fan would have been hard pressed to identify The Guardians of the Galaxy before Marvel announced the movie. Despite being a film whose major feature was an anthropomorphic racoon, The Guardians of the Galaxy was still able to make over $750 million worldwide. That shouldn’t be taken as an insult to the movie though — it was one of my favourite films of last year — but more of a statement on how audiences will watch anything as long as the Marvel logo is stuck in front of it.

Marvel’s success has prompted other studios to try their hand at creating a cinematic universe. There has been talk that Universal Studios was attempting to reboot their classic movie monsters into a connected universe with the recently released Dracula Untold. DC and Warner Brothers are trying to compete with Marvel Studios, as they have plans to release a universe that will bring together Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman into a larger film comparable to the Justice League: Part One.

Now is a good time to be a comic book fan. Marvel and DC are no longer just fighting for your reading time but for your movie experience as well. As the old saying goes, competition breeds excellence and that means we as consumers can come out on top.

Marvel has found success within their cinematic universe and so have movie-goers, as they’ve found a film franchise that produces consistently watchable films — a rarity in the age of sequels that only serves as unfulfilled promises of what could have been.

The next Marvel film, Avengers: Age of Ultron, lands in theatres on May 1.