“Mr Stark, you’ve become part of a bigger universe. You just don’t know it yet…”
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is possibly the largest and most significant narrative beast that cinema (and storytelling as a whole) has ever hosted. While I’m personally experiencing a period of superhero fatigue (induced by Age of Ultron), it’s impossible not to Marvel (sorry) at the immense network of media products that has been assembled to form the MCU.
Whitehouse shows us how today’s more complex narrative structures originated during the golden age of superhero comics. It’s interesting to observe how ‘crossover’ and ‘tie-in’ narratives were used by comics as a way to increase sales AND to see how the same strategies have been employed by Marvel (and DC) in their filmmaking to foster immense anticipation and hype for their future/upcoming films. From a marketing perspective this clearly still works – Batman v Superman may have sucked, but the hype DC created surrounding the film’s release led to what I imagine were huge pre-booking numbers and in turn an incredible box office return.
I think it’s certainly true that the universes created by comic books (and now film franchises) allow for a wide audience appeal. As Whitehouse suggests, by creating universes (or as Bordwell calls them ‘Network Narratives) which multiple characters inhabit, storytellers allow audience members the ability to explore and research certain characters and storylines which they find most interesting. For instance, a while back I found myself researching the history of the Iron Man suit – mainly because I find that stuff really cool from a design perspective – however their are others who probably have no interest in this aspect of the MCU at all. This level of interactivity and depth is something that older, single-medium stories could never achieve.
With Batman v Superman sulking in the shadow of the upcoming Captain America: Civil War, it’s evident that the cinematic world-building that Marvel has achieved is something that many others (ahem DC) wish they could accomplish too. Personally, I think Marvel has nearly perfected the art of transmedia storytelling and world-building and I think they began building the MCU at just the right time. Others will certainly continue to have a difficult time replicating what Marvel has already achieved.