Like in any lucrative business empire, there’s a method behind the madness of Marvel’s success. Researchers and professors Spencer Harrison, Arne Carlsen, and Miha Škerlavaj broke it down in a 2019 article for the Harvard Business Review.
One strategy Marvel employed was to keep its audience curious. As the researchers noted, the storylines of most films, at the very least, invoke “intense interests.” They also engage with fans through social media interactions, which helps grow the community further.
“This approach is rooted in a long Marvel tradition of supporting the growth of fan communities by, for example, including letters columns at the back of comic books,” they wrote.
Another strategy Marvel employed was to hire directors and actors who lacked the experience and reputation for being in superhero films. It’s one of the reasons why they hired indie director Jon Favreau and then Hollywood bad boy Robert Downey Jr. for the first Iron Man film in 2008.
The pairing worked, and it drew praise from renowned critic Roger Ebert, who praised the development of Tony Stark. He commended Favreau’s decision to create the character based on Downey’s on-screen persona as “irreverent, quirky, self-deprecating, wise-cracking.”
Since the success of Iron Man in 2008, the MCU has released a total of 37 films. Many Marvel nuts have likely binged-watched all of them. And if you have time on your hands but don’t know where to begin, here’s an extensive guide from Hulu.
You can do it through phase order, which basically means you watch according to release date. However, if you want to go deeper, you can do it according to the Marvel chronological timeline.
