Is The MCU The Greatest Franchise Of All Time?

[Powerboy]

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).

That's pretty much what I'm saying too. I'm not arguing that they are the greatest quality ever made in every case. But they have probably made more money than any other franchise.

Again, longevity in terms of years compared to number of movies is debatable.

[Valentis]

Star Wars or Harry Potter are the greatest franchises of all time. MCU movies are awful, filled with low stakes, trying too hard to be funny and carbon copy villains.

[daBronzeBomma]

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is unquestionably the most successful film franchise of all time.

More so than any other film franchise, including the traditional heavyweights 007 and Godzilla. It's more successful than Star Wars, Star Trek, LOTR, Harry Potter, DCEU, and any other directly-connected series of movies you can name.

Greatest? That's a different question.

At some point, it stops mattering how much money a film makes or how many people saw it. Will the storytelling still hold up enough down the road? That probably won't apply to most of the MCU flicks.

Iron Man, The Avengers, and Black Panther are 3 of the 23 that probably will stand the test. Maybe more, but those 3 would top my list.

[Jim Kelly]

One of these things is not like the others
One of these things just doesn't belong
Can you tell which thing is not like the others
By the time I finish my song?

[CliffHanger2]

I'd say so, other major franchises have faltered after the initial trilogies. Like LOTR and StarWars the prequels and final chapters weren't up the standard of the original trilogies. Whereas MCU are the most consistent franchise their aren't any huge drops in quality or polarizing events to divide fans.

[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.

[WillieMorgan]

On reflection, I've realised that I made a grave omission in that post above. How could I have forgotten about the 'Carry On...' franchise?

31 cinematic movies, all masterpieces. We have a new winner. Move over MCU, there's one film series that is pretty much untouchable .

[Will Evans]

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is unquestionably the most successful film franchise of all time.

More so than any other film franchise, including the traditional heavyweights 007 and Godzilla. It's more successful than Star Wars, Star Trek, LOTR, Harry Potter, DCEU, and any other directly-connected series of movies you can name.

Greatest? That's a different question.

At some point, it stops mattering how much money a film makes or how many people saw it. Will the storytelling still hold up enough down the road? That probably won't apply to most of the MCU flicks.

Iron Man, The Avengers, and Black Panther are 3 of the 23 that probably will stand the test. Maybe more, but those 3 would top my list.

Winter Soldier belongs in the same category as those three.
It’s the one Marvel movie I can show non-MCU or non-superhero movie fans, and they still love it.

[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".

[Mister Mets]

There's a good case for this.

Star Wars and Lord of the Rings might have some better movies, but nothing else comes close to the sheer number of good MCU movies, and the low number of bad movies.

[Frobisher]

Franchises are something to do with fast food, so my answer is that I don’t know.

[Godzilla2099]

I vote Yes. MCU is the greatest.

For me, the Guardians of the Galaxy Movie is proof alone. Lets take an unknown team with a talking racoon and a talking tree make a sci-fi flick into it.

That takes serious talent to make a project like that successful

[Jim Kelly]

Well in terms of the NHL, I think of a franchise team as any team that was not one of the original six (Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs, Boston Bruins, Detroit Red Wings, Chicago Blackhawks). Of course, with Mickey D, a franchise is one of the restaurants.

As with a lot of other words there's not one meaning. I certainly wouldn't call all the Disney Marvel movies a single franchise--maybe a line of movies or a brand of movies.

It's just too bad that it ended up being Disney that got the rights to all those characters. Disney movies, of necessity, are rather bland. They have to be because they need to appeal to a wide demographic without offending anyone. So they play it safe. I think 20th Century Fox, Universal, Sony or Warner would have been better, as there would have been a greater variety of movies, aimed at different audiences.