'The Avengers': Marvel's Prototypical Super-Franchise

Photo: Digital Trends

I'm sure that Marvel and Paramount are ecstatic (and relieved) that their $300 million-budgeted cash cow experiment was able to churn out a whopping and unprecedented $207 million at the box office in its very first weekend. Let's face it, this is the first movie of it's kind; a conglomeration of highly successful and marketable superhero franchises -- a super-franchise, really. It could've pulled in a mere $130 million (about the same as Iron Man 2) over the weekend and the studio heads would've been satisfied, I suspect, because given that the same audience that shows up in droves for the Iron Man movies -- Marvel's most marketable superhero franchise, thanks in large part to the recent emergence of R.D.J.'s unrivaled star power -- is presumably the same audience that shows up for Thor, Captain America, The Incredible Hulk, etc. (i.e., less profitable Marvel franchises), wouldn't it seem reasonable to assume that the fate of The Avengers would ride significantly on the brand equity of its charismatic and narrative centerpiece, Tony Stark?

As it was, The Avengers managed to surpass box-office juggernauts such as 2011's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two (by about $37 million) and 2008's The Dark Knight (by nearly $50 million) to claim the top spot on the list of highest domestic weekend openings, ever. And it wasn't even close. It also just surpassed $700 million worldwide (as of 5/08), which puts it, oh, about $80 million above what Iron Man 2 was able to earn durings it entire theatrical run. It's unprecedented, and given the luxury of hindsight (I'm assuming at this point that the film will earn at least $450 million domestically... and that's pretty conservative) I'd say it's not only a fortuitous experiment, but also likely the way of the future, at least as far as Hollywood superhero franchising goes. (Mark my words: that Justice League movie will inevitably get made, despite any opposition from Christian Bale, Christopher Nolan, or whoever else.)

More after the jump...

A Changing of the Guard

A growing trend of the last several awards seasons has been the increasing amount of recognition for new-school filmmakers such as David Fincher, Christopher Nolan, Danny Boyle, P.T. Anderson, Quentin Tarantino, Wes Anderson, David O. Russell, Darren Aronofsky, and others. All of these guys have been directing films for at least a decade, and a few of them are approaching twenty years of service in Hollywood, so I hesitate to refer to them as new-school, but it's certainly something of a new era in the grand scheme of things.

David Fincher's breakthrough film was 1995's Seven, and he followed that up four years later with Fight Club. Both films were received warmly by moviegoers and critics, but neither were nominated for any major awards. Skip ahead to 2011, and Fincher already has one Oscar nomination for his directorial work in 2008's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. His new film, The Social Network, has been racking up all kinds of awards and nominations over the last month or two. To say that it's the frontrunner for Best Picture at the Oscars this year would be like saying that Charlie Sheen loves hanging with pornstars and doing coke... it's quite obvious.

Directors such as Danny Boyle, Chris Nolan and Tarantino have also been enjoying mainstream success over the last few years. Boyle dominated the Oscars in 2009 with Slumdog Millionaire, and Tarantino got a well-deserved directorial nomination for Inglorious Basterds last year. Chris Nolan pretty much single-handedly caused the AMPAS to expand their best picture field from five to ten films last year, as an overwhelming amount of The Dark Knight supporters voiced their dissent over the film's 2009 Oscar snub. Nolan did score a DGA nomination in 2009, however.