Back in 2008, Marvel Studios released their first movie, Iron Man. Now, 8 years and 12 films later, Marvel Studios has essentially changed the way Hollywood is run. The success of their Marvel Cinematic Universe has given the studio a virtual right to print money. Slap a red Marvel logo before a movie, and it’s guaranteed to make $400 million. With Spider-Man on the way to the party, the trend is only going to continue.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a series of superhero films that all take place in the same continuity. Since 2008, there have been 12 films, which have collectively grossed $9 billion worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film franchise of all time.
The first film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe was Iron Man (2008), which was distributed by Paramount Pictures. Paramount also distributed Iron Man 2 (2010), Thor (2011) and Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), while Universal Pictures distributed The Incredible Hulk (2008). Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures began distributing the films with the 2012 crossover film The Avengers, which concluded Phase One of the franchise.
Phase Two includes Iron Man 3 (2013), Thor: The Dark World (2013), Captain America: The Winter Soldier(2014), Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), and Ant-Man (2015).
So, I gave myself the awesome task of spending a weekend watching all 12 movies from Marvel’s Phase 1 & 2 in an attempt to rank them. Enjoy, nerds.
Marvel’s Phase 3 kicks off with 2016’s Captain America: Civil War, and Doctor Strange, and will continue with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017), Spider-Man (2017), Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Black Panther (2018), Avengers: Infinity War – Part 1(2018), Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018), Captain Marvel (2019), Avengers: Infinity War – Part 2 (2019), and Inhumans (2019).
