Is The MCU The Greatest Franchise Of All Time?

[Amadeus Arkham]

In your honest opinion, do you think the MCU is worthy of the title of “greatest franchise of all time”? To me, I think it definitely is.

Few franchises can ever lay claim to being as consistently successful as they are while maintaining the quality it has. Avengers Endgame alone was arguably the greatest achievement of blockbuster filmmaking in recent memory, even if you don’t share the love for the movie most have, you cannot deny it delivered for most a powerful and emotionally engaging experience that will remembered for the rest of their lives.

[AdamFTF]

I'm not sure I should really even consider it one franchise so much as more of a "meta-franchise".

[80sbaby]

I would definitely says the answer is yes. Even if taking the characters/films individually, there still hasn't been a single flop.

I'm not sure I should really even consider it one franchise so much as more of a "meta-franchise".

Did you mean "meGa-franchise?"

[Pinsir]

I would definitely says the answer is yes. Even if taking the characters/films individually, there still hasn't been a single flop

Man, MCU fans really love non-sequiturs.

Also, not true, Hulk (Budget 150 mill, Box Office 264 mill) and Cap 1 (Budget 216 mill, Box Office 370 mill) are clearly flops.

[80sbaby]

Man, MCU fans really love non-sequiturs.

Also, not true, Hulk (Budget 150 mill, Box Office 264 mill) and Cap 1 (Budget 216 mill, Box Office 370 mill) are clearly flops.

You don't have to lie, Craig...Cap 1 had $140 million budget and made $370, so doubled it's budget and not a flop. Hulk could be considered a "flop," though so 1 out of 22 lol you really showed how bad the MCU is...

[Totoro Man]

it's okay. I mean, in terms of quality it's probably the best franchise overall. but I'm not sure it's beaten out Godzilla or James Bond in terms of sheer volume.

but I'm glad it's turned out better than "Alien", "Predator", "Resident Evil", or "Underworld"! ;-)

and, of course, we can't forget the 13 sequels to "the Land Before Time"!

[Pinsir]

You don't have to lie, Craig...Cap 1 had $140 million budget and made $370, so doubled it's budget and not a flop. Hulk could be considered a "flop," though so 1 out of 22 lol you really showed how bad the MCU is...

https___blogs-images.forbes.com_csylt_files_2018_04_Marvel-table-1200x669.jpg

Since Cap 1 was filmed in Great Britain, they have to be more forthcoming with their financial information. The number I cited is from a Forbes article which can be found here along with the graph I posted. The number I posted doesn't even account for the total listed on this graph, as 44 million is listed here for staffing costs. So the total listed here 260.7 million and this doesn't account for advertising, which Cap 1 had tons of.

Also, I don't care if 1 or all MCU movies flopped, that doesn't mean they're bad movies in itself. I just object to this myth that the MCU never had a flop

[AdamFTF]

Did you mean "meGa-franchise?"

No, "meta-franchise". Like how Super Sentai, Kamen Rider and Pretty Cure are all considered "metaseries" because they're made up of multiple series. Of course, those are different from the MCU because they only have one series running at a time. Normally, a franchise would consist of a movie series as well as some spin-off stuff. The thing with the MCU is that it's a franchise made up of franchises. For example, there's an Iron Man franchise made up of Iron Man, Iron Man 2 and Iron Man 3. There's a Captain America franchise made up Captain America: The First Avenger, Captain America: Winter Soldier and Captain America: Civil War. You get the picture. But it gets even stranger when you include the Avengers movies, because the Avengers sequels aren't necessarily sequels to the previous movies. Avengers was a team-up origin story based around the previous solo films. Avengers: Age of Ultron was the closest to an actual sequel, probably because Joss Whedon wanted to do something more like was in the normal Avengers comics (whether it worked is another story). But it still depended on events from Captain America: Winter Soldier for its set-up. Then Avengers: Infinity War spun off from everything that had happened up to that point in all the series. Then Avengers: Endgame was a continuation of Avengers: Infinity War. It's like some big, coral reef of franchises that have attained symbiosis. It's never worked like this before. I mean, Star Wars was a big franchise. But this is like if Star Wars was connected to Indiana Jones which was connected to Willow and all three were set to crossover in "Lucasfilm Force Part 1". And it pretty much only works because of where we are with technology right now and how ridiculously easy it is to get caught up on movies we missed, whether it's watching them on demand or just getting the gist from reading a wiki.

So, you see why it might be hard to judge the MCU. There's no preexisting frame of reference to judge it against.

[Jim Kelly]

I object to the whole premise of this topic because it's set up to make the Disney Marvel movies the only viable option. You're taking a unique construction and then saying isn't this the greatest of its kind. Given there is no other of its kind, we're forced to agree. So what is even the point but to make Marvel fans feel good and make everyone else feel miserable?

[WillieMorgan]

Yeah, I think so overall. It's a bit of a difficult question as nothing really exists to directly compare it to. It's like someone else mentioned, the MCU is almost like a 'meta-franchise'. Nothing else this ambitious has ever been attempted by Hollywood and Marvel deserve credit for managing to pull it off with such aplomb. It irks me that DC's attempt to imitate the MCU was so divisive. It makes it look like an impossible endeavour wheras Marvel have proved that the formula can be VERY successful.

I'm not a big James Bond fan but many of those movies are a little dated now obviously. The Harry Potter films were consistently really good so that could rival it possibly but with far less films to make it a direct comparison. Star Wars took a nosedive with the incredibly badly made Prequel Trilogy (sorry George) and Disney SW just feels like a pale facsimile of Star Wars to me. The last three films I haven't even bothered with (including The Last Jedi which seems to be a major source of contention between fans). I just can't get motivated by it in the slightest. So yeah, the MCU wins I suppose.

I'll always consider the comic-book universes to be more important though. The real DC and Marvel universes are the printed ones.

[Powerboy]

I object to the whole premise of this topic because it's set up to make the Disney Marvel movies the only viable option. You're taking a unique construction and then saying isn't this the greatest of its kind. Given there is no other of its kind, we're forced to agree. So what is even the point but to make Marvel fans feel good and make everyone else feel miserable?

The OP's opinion is clear and he does make claims that are, by definition, subjective, such as most emotionally gripping.

Granted that saying it's the longest movie by movie buildup to such a concluding movie makes the results inevitable. But there is still disagreement.

Some of us argue that making the most money or having the biggest number of movies does not equal an auto-win. In fact, the sheer number of movies tends to almost give the "most money total for the entire franchise" win automatically assuming we're talking about blockbusters.

I think it is probably the most successful shared universe. Harry Potter is all about a certain set of characters.

James Bond just celebrated its 25th movie, I think, movies that are all about the same character, this going back to 1962.

So, does anybody really believe the MCU will still around in 60 years? Even if someone does, it's conjecture versus proven success.

So there's lots of room for argument about "most successful".

[Pinsir]

Marvel Comics is better than the MCU, by like a lot.

Its great that the MCU provides joy and comfort to millions to you and millions of people. You say that even I, a critic of the MCU would have to admit that it provided a powerful and emotional experience that will be remembered for most of their lives, but thus far the MCU hasn't displayed a tremendous staying power in the public consciousness. How many memorable quotes does the MCU have? How many memorable sound tracks? How many memorable scenes and moments?

There is a pretty famous Star Trek episode called Darmok where the crew of the enterprise encounter a race of aliens that speak entirely with metaphors and I think you could replicate this style of speech with Star Wars, both the OT and PT, but you can't do it with the MCU. Sure, you got the Thanos snap and some Captain America memes, but that's it.

[OpaqueGiraffe17]

In your honest opinion, do you think the MCU is worthy of the title of “greatest franchise of all time”? To me, I think it definitely is.

Few franchises can ever lay claim to being as consistently successful as they are while maintaining the quality it has. Avengers Endgame alone was arguably the greatest achievement of blockbuster filmmaking in recent memory, even if you don’t share the love for the movie most have, you cannot deny it delivered for most a powerful and emotionally engaging experience that will remembered for the rest of their lives.

yes, to all of this. I'm not even a massive marvel fan, but I am very grateful the MCU exists. The Infinity Saga is a triumph that I doubt will be surpassed anytime soon.

[godisawesome]

The only rivals that I think could be matched against it a few years ago would have been the Bond series in terms of longevity and number of films and in terms of pop culture and box office impact would be Star Wars. And the MCU officially surpassed Star Wars, in my opinion, when Black Panther, a Solo stand-alone film, managed to beat Sequel Trilogy entry The Last Jedi at the box office, even as critics fell over themselves worshipping the pretentious drivel in TLJ, and even as Black Panther had a worse release date. The Bond series would require a holistic measurement of adjusting its box office grosses over time for inflation, as you would with Star Wars, but I’d say that the MCU has sufficiently advantages in terms of sheer number of excessively profitable films to be the more successful franchise.

And yeah, the triumph of managing to tie in almost all previous films to the Infinity Saga is a masterclass that is unlikely to be equaled. I look at Rise of Skywalker as being a failure because in comparison to Endgame, it’s got nothing.

[AndrewCrossett]

23 films, and I wouldn't rate any of them worse than "OK". So, yeah... maybe overall the greatest film franchise of all time. The Harry Potter movies are probably the only other franchise longer than a trilogy that I can say that about. (Maybe Mad Max, at 4 films).