The cinemaverseYesterday filmmaker Anthony Russo, who co-directed the highest grossing movie of all time (Avengers: Endgame), outlined why he believes cinematic universes — where characters, plots and timelines converge over multiple movies — will continue to be the foundation of global cinema.
Marvelous Marvel
From Russo's director chair it would be hard to come up with any conclusion other than "cinematic universes are the future" considering the unbelievable success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe — which has pumped out box office hit after box office hit since Disney's acquisition of Marvel Entertainment in 2008. Indeed, all told the 28 movies in the MCU have grossed more than $26 billion on the big screen, for a whopping $940m+ average per movie.
Marvel's latest entry in the series, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, is a great example of the incredible pull of the MCU. Doctor Strange is not exactly a character with the fame of Spider-Man, Thor or Captain America and yet the movie has already pulled in $720m globally. That is only just shy of the $768m pulled in by rival DC Comics' flagship character movie The Batman.
If it ain't broke
Perhaps what's most insane about the Marvel movies is that there are no signs of production slowing down. Two more MCU releases are planned for this year, with three more in the works for the year after that. In fact exec producer Kevin Feige revealed recently that the studio now has narratives and a plan for the MCU all the way out to 2032.
