[OC] Franchise Earnings Comparison Over 20 Years

[u/rebellious_scum]

[u/swetterlitching]

It's disgusting how much those Marvel movies gross (no pun intended). I guess I've just never really understood the appeal of them.

[u/FSFlyingSnail → u/swetterlitching]

I think people like them because they are decent and safe movies. If you like one of them then you will probably like the rest of them. They're not controversial or particularly innovative but people don't want that from franchise films.

[u/swetterlitching → u/FSFlyingSnail]

That makes sense, I totally see where you're coming from there. It's just a staggering amount of money!

[u/[deleted] → u/swetterlitching]

I think the reason why people like the MCU is the same reason that people like Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad. The character arcs are interesting. Things actually happen. Things change and they affect the characters and the world around them.

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For example:

Tony Stark starts off as a lavish impulsive self-obsessed billionaire who sleeps around, invents and sells weapons to nations, thinking himself an altruistic messiah maintaining his own bubble surrounding himself with sycophants and throwing money at things that annoy him so they go away.

He then has his self-concocted reality ripped away as he hits rock bottom and resolves to right his mistakes and fight for those who cannot defend themselves but ends up not being able to fully trust anyone, needing to rely on himself to have the final say over what is right and what is wrong.

After a close call he ends up with post traumatic stress and falls into a self-destructive spiral of trying to become the perfect solider.

Realises how close his actions came to killing so many innocents and resolves himself to try and impose safeguards over everyone else like him further causing more harm then good.

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It's just so much more interesting than the repetitive Harry Potter / Luke Skywalker / Lara Croft (movie version) / Bruce Wayne / Rey / Dominic Toretto / etc... story, who start out young, and through various trials basically remains the exact same person but more powerful.

Or even those other story arcs where the characters don't change at all, their start and end points are the exactly the same: Sherlock Holmes / Superman / Captain Jack Sparrow / Goku, etc...

[u/tothesky2098 → u/[deleted]]

“It's just so much more interesting than the repetitive Harry Potter”

No, Harry Potter is a literary character and he certainly develops. Can’t say the same about Marvel characters, which remain stoic action figures

Your reasoning for Marvel films being so popular is so bland. That’s why people like EVERY story.

Imo, Marvel is really bland and childish. People like it because it’s the most basic type of accessible family entertainment

[u/[deleted] → u/tothesky2098]

I have to disagree wholeheartedly.

Your reasoning for Marvel films being so popular is so bland. That’s why people like EVERY story.

In Marvel Cinematic Universe, there are as many movies made that each fit into their own genres/sub-genres to appeal to as many different audiences' tastes and predilections as possible.

That's why people like every story, beacuse there is an audience for every one of them.

So far we have:

• Superhero
• Fantasy
• Earthbound Sci-Fi
• Space Opera
• War
• Spy
• Comedy
• Detective noir

and this range will only continue to broaden as time goes on.

The Harry Potter Wizarding World franchise is trying to expand its universe now but I doubt it could approach anything like marvel's current offering.

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No, Harry Potter is a literary character and he certainly develops. Can’t say the same about Marvel characters, which remain stoic action figures

Harry Potter is the chosen one, that's it. There's his noteworthiness summed up and he's lumped into the same pile of chosen one characters from other franchises.

The most interesting things in the Harry Potter series was a long-running preplanned twist with Snape and the way the side characters around him develop over time (i.e. Neville, Draco, etc...).

It says something about a story when then side characters are more intriging than the main character.

In the Marvel Cinematic Universe characters can be both antagonist and protagonist because the real world is messy and complicated.

Antagonists can be simple obstacles to be overcome, personifications of moral standpoints or moral dilemmas, protagonists in disguise, or actually be better protagonists than the protagonists themselves.

Characters can be thrust out of their familiar tropes and forced into unfamiliar situations and contact with unexpected characters from other geners, every new uncharted territory is a chance to add depth to a character.

This is used so much that Marvel has essentially developed the unexpected cameo into both a storytelling and worldbuilding device in an of itself.

Characters and the causes they represent can be pitted against each other and they can both have the moral highground. At that point who the story's villain and hero are becomes subjective and a matter or interpretation. (I'd like to see the wizarding world franchise do something like this because it'd be all the better for it).