Should MCU count as a single franchise?

[MessiahDecoy123]

I figured the Marvel Films forum would be a little biased.

So what do you guys think?

Is MCU a single franchise?

 

[SuperSanchez]

I guess, everythings in the same universe and every movie refrences the other ones so yeh ur right.

 

[Sawyer]

Generally, yeah, I think of it that way.

 

[CyclopsWasRight]

I view it as a a continuity that collects individual franchises.

A franchise is a series of movies featuring the same characters or concepts, Thor The Dark World features none of the same characters or story or locations as The Incredible Hulk so how can they be the same franchise.

There's also the name factor, a franchise almost always has similiar titles with the character or franchise name in them (Spider-Man, Star Wars, Terminator, Planet/Apes, X-Men ect...) but Thor The Dark World in addition to not featuring anything Hulk has it's own title-ing separate & different from that other franchise.

If a person says they like the Captain America franchise that means they are referring to the two Cap movies, not them plus seven other non-Cap movies.

There's too many movies about different characters across the board for them all to be considered one franchise instead of a collection.

If you count them all as one then the Alien movies and Predator movies should be considered one franchise and the Tarantino movies all one franchise as they share a continuity with a number of overlapping elements. The reason they are not is that even though they share a continuity it doesn't make them all about the same characters or concepts so therefore they are viewed as individuals.

The same should happen with the various MCU movies as they each are a franchise that tells an ongoing story about one set of characters, not of all of the others too.

Basically the way I see it is Thor The Dark World isn't about Iron Man, Iron Man isn't about Captain America, Captain America The First Avenger isn't about The Incredible Hulk which isn't about Thor which isn't about Captain America and so on

Whereas every Hunger Games is about Katniss, Every Transformers about Optimus and his Autobots, every Star Trek about The crew of the Enterprise, every Star Wars about the Skywalker family and so on

If the MCU was one franchise then every movie would be about the same characters or same concept, but they aren't, they each are about different characters so each are separate franchises.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

I see the solo MCU movies as spin offs. And spin offs are typically included in the same franchise as the original film.

The fact that they were launched before Avengers doesn't matter. They fulfill the role of any spin off.

In fact the MCU solo films serve the narrative of a whole franchise better than most spin offs which go off into tangents that never return to the core concept.

 

[CyclopsWasRight]

I'd view The Avengers as the spin-off as that Span-off from the character movies. Not so much a spin-off as a crossover as they went back to individual movies afterwords

 

[kedrell]

The way I see it, franchise = continuity so yes, the MCU is a franchise. Perhaps it's something else though, something new that it's basically the only one of. A multifranchise. A franchise made up of smaller franchises.

The Tarantino movies IMO are not a franchise because they do not share a continuity. It takes more than two characters in separate films having the same last name to equal continuity. That's just an easter egg of zero importance. In order for their to be any meaningful continuity, the events in one film in a franchise have to impact those in another film.

As far as he Alien and Predator series are concerned, those are two completely separate franchises in their inception which later on got married for a couple of lousy films and then quickly divorced. They were not made with each other in mind in any way so it's another thing altogether as I see it. But if push comes to shove then I guess you could use all, what...10 films I guess as another example of this, just not one which was ever planned from the get go. That would count for all the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm St. films as well due to Freddy vs. Jason. It basically depends on the intent of the creators when they first made these IPs.

The MCU movies have been unequivocally created from the ground up to each be pieces of a bigger picture which it telling the story of the Marvel Universe on film. None of the others meet that criteria.

 

[slumcat]

Not really.

A single universe, yes, but not one single franchise.

 

[The Endless]

The thing is, it's not mere references connecting the individual films together. It's whole plot points and character arcs.

In Avengers we seen Loki continue to descend into villainy. We see the Tesseract from The First Avenger as the McGuffin. We see the true influence of SHIELD that was only hinted in the Iron Man films.

Then in The Winter Soldier we see the world and SHIELDs reaction to catastrophic events like in Avengers. In Iron Man 3 we see Stark suffering from PTSD after what happened in Avengers. In Thor 2 we have another Infinity Gem (they really dropped the ball with this film though)

Stuff like that really hasn't been done before so it's kinda hard to classify in terms we use for other things.

 

[DA_Champion]

It's both a franchise and a collection of franchises, it's a meta-franchise, but can someone explain why it matters?

 

[The Endless]

It doesn't really unless people want to show off about box office.

 

[Majik1387]

Yes. They are the Marvel movies from Marvel.

It's one franchise.

 

[Tanin]

It's both a franchise and a collection of franchises, it's a meta-franchise, but can someone explain why it matters?

Box Office numbers. Not that it matters in the slightest.

 

[Donnie Darko]

I would say yes. It's all one big world that not only references previous/future films, but something in one film can greatly affect something in another film.

If all the Star Wars "episodes" count (especially if you add in the future movies like Boba Fett), then I would say MCU counts as well. You can say that Star Wars is all about the Skywalker family, but is that really much different than the MCU being all about the Avengers (or Marvel heroes as a whole)?

 

[jmc]

I'd say yes, at least after the first Avengers film. Before then when there was not yet an established connectivity you could have made the argument against, but I think the MCU is not that different to any other franchise other than the number of characters getting films.

 

[StarkTheProdigy]

Any of the solo films leading up to the Avengers yes. Tricky question.

 

[Drizzle]

I see it as one huge franchise made up of smaller franchises.

 

[los pollos]

I would say yes, but I would call it a mega-franchise, probably the first of it's kind. One could watch Cap 1 and 2 by themselves and understand everything they need to without being lost, same with the thor movies and to a lesser extant, the iron man trilogy. I personally dislike the thor movies so I don't bother watching them until they are on netflix, but I didn't feel like I missed anything when I watched the Avengers, I3, and TWS.

ps: I actually like the Thor character in the movies, but I didn't like his solo movies for various reasons (weak direction, forced comedy detracted from the actual threat, action was forgettable save for first sequence in both movies.)

 

[The Endless]

Yea Hemsworth has been done a disservice by his films. He's a great Thor. But the films are basically rom/coms. Although i do really enjoy the first one. It has a sense of wonder and great character work.

 

[metaphysician]

I would say that we need a new name. Or else we need to formally separate "franchise" from "series" in its meaning.

 

[kedrell]

I enjoy both Thor movies(easily as much as any Spider-man or X-Men movie that's been made) but I'll agree that unlike Shell-head and Cap, Thor has yet to have a great solo outing(which I consider the first Iron Man and both Cap films to be ). Basically in the MCU it's Iron Man first with Cap right on his tail(and may surpass him) and Thor's bringing up 3rd with Hulk solidly in 4th(sad for me since he's my favorite).

 

[Hellrider]

I would say it is a mega-franchise, as someone earlier has coined. The MCU is a entirely different beast than any movie franchise that has been attempted before. They're pretty much franchises within bigger franchises (the biggest being the avengers).

The thing about coining them as complete and seperate franchises is their narrative connectivity and the characters that show up in separate movies. Hawkeye and Loki shows up in Thor and Avengers; Nick Fury in Iron man 1 &2 and TWS; Black Widow in Iron Man 2, Avengers, and TWS; etc.

The narrative is far to intertwined to be considered separate franchises. The events in TWS and Iron Man 3 still serve as integral movies that'll explain important aspects of the AoU film. Much like Thor and Cap 1 were important to establish Loki and Cap's story and motivations for Avengers. It's nothing like Tarantino movies, Predator vs Alien, Harry Potter, or Hunger Game franchises.

 

[Drizzle]

The narrative is far to intertwined to be considered separate franchises. The events in TWS and Iron Man 3 still serve as integral movies that'll explain important aspects of the AoU film. Much like Thor and Cap 1 were important to establish Loki and Cap's story and motivations for Avengers. It's nothing like Tarantino movies, Predator vs Alien, Harry Potter, or Hunger Game franchises.

I see your point there. While the Iron Man movies could be considered a franchise on their own in regards to box office, from a story standpoint it's different. Iron Man 3 incorporates the events of The Avengers into its storyline in such a way that might make it confusing for someone who hasn't seen it to follow. Same goes for Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Thor: The Dark World.