In case you haven’t yet, make sure to check out Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 of this article first!
In May of 2012, Marvel Studios broke box-office records and exceeded all expectations with The Avengers, a virtually unprecedented crossover film event that brought together the lead characters from four separate superhero franchises in a fun and surprisingly cohesive way thanks to a sharp script and tight direction from geek darling Joss Whedon. On paper, putting an iron-clad billionaire, a World War II-era super soldier, a mythical god from another realm, a temperamental mad scientist, and a pair of assassins in the same room together just didn’t seem like something that should work in a movie, but the five films preceding The Avengers slowly and successfully established a colorful comic-booky world, light-hearted tone, and self-aware sense of humor, which allowed audiences to buy right into it.
Once The Avengers became lovingly embraced by the entire world, you could just sense that other movie studios instantly began scrambling around to desperately find their own shared universes that could compete with Marvel. That same summer, Sony Pictures released The Amazing Spider-Man, which completely erased the continuity of Sam Raimi’s original Spider-Man trilogy and started entirely from scratch with another retelling of the origin story. Now played by Andrew Garfield, we once again followed Peter Parker’s journey to becoming Spider-Man, which I honestly felt was done way better and with a lot more passion in the original Spider-Man film.
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