Marvel Cinematic Universe

  The Fall: Marvel Before 2008 In the 1990s, Marvel was struggling. Comic book sales were declining, and the company filed for bankruptcy in 1996 . To stay afloat, Marvel sold movie rights to its most popular heroes — Spider-Man to Sony , X-Men and Fantastic Four to Fox , and Hulk to Universal . This meant Marvel had no control over its biggest characters, and the few films made by other studios had mixed success. Without its own cinematic identity, Marvel seemed finished as a movie brand. The Rise: Birth of the MCU In the mid-2000s, Kevin Feige and Marvel Studios made a bold move — to produce their own movies independently. They chose Iron Man , a character far from the mainstream, as their first test. When “Iron Man” (2008) hit theaters, it was an instant success. The post-credit scene teasing the Avengers Initiative introduced audiences to the idea of a shared universe , something no studio had ever done before. The Legacy From that one risk grew a cinematic empire — the...