Iron Man, Nick Fury, and Hawkeye's mysterious wife, who is probably full of resentment, are all characters living in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). From time to time, we pay out of our own pockets just to get a glimpse of this virtual universe. But this wasn't always the case until Marvel's key characters became beloved cultural symbols. In fact, like Downey Jr. himself, they didn't fare well until 2008.
6. Before Downey Jr., no one wanted to make an Iron Man movie, and no one wanted to make related toys
Iron Man (2008).
As it stands now, as long as there is Iron Man in the movie, even if Kevin James (starring in "Department Store X-Men") plays a diarrhea firefighter in the movie, he can make more than $1 billion at the box office, but this was not the case before. Before Marvel set up its own studio, even Stan Lee didn't think Marvel had any potential to make movies. In 1998, the old man sold the film's filming vouchers for $10 million. Now it seems like selling Apple stock for a jar of artifact beans and a tattered copy of Escherre magazine.
Marvel film and television drama Iron Man in the 1970s
Lee explained that most of Marvel's most popular characters were sold to other studios, and marvel kept little sought-after. For example, Iron Man in the 1990s was sold from one studio to another, and each studio didn't want to do anything with him. In the comics of the same period, Iron Man became a villain and began a straightforward slaughter of the Avengers. Later, the Avengers discover that he has been brainwashed, so the remaining Avengers decide on a best plan to stop him. No, not anti-brainwashing, but a step back in time to bring Tony as a teenager back to the present and present duels. But it didn't work.
The classic version of Tony eventually died, and the young Tony stayed behind to take over the mantle. Yes, it's basically Iron Man dying and then resurrecting as a teenager, a bit like the intersection of the Bible's New Testament and Tiger Beat magazines. Because the plot is so silly X, the author eventually brings back the old Tony Stark through vague reaction magic. Still, Old Tony felt guilty about the murder he had committed.
In order to make you understand how unpopular Iron Man was at that time, I have to tell you that Marvel did not spend money to buy back Iron Man's film rights, but waited until the contract of New Line Pictures automatically expired, and they never thought about making Iron Man movies for so many years. So why did Marvel choose Iron Man to open up the cinematic universe? It has little to do with the merits of the iron man character. It's because Marvel brought in a bunch of kids, showed them a bunch of superhero pictures, and asked them which one they liked best if they were made into a toy.
As a result, this strategy backfired, and Marvel later found that no company was willing to make or even buy Iron Man toys, because Iron Man is TM who? Marvel got a team of researchers and found that most people thought of Iron Man as a robot, not an alcoholic in battle armor. Marvel even made a series of short films later just to show and let everyone "realize" that there is really a person in the armor... Or a lifeless robot like the one in Polar Express. That was the beginning of a multibillion-dollar cinematic universe at the box office.
5. Thor's "appearance" in the first film is because other superheroes are not available
Thor 2011 (The Day of the Hammer Group)
Thor, an Asgardian warrior who looks like a flat model in a cheap magazine, became an enduring and lucrative movie character like Luke Skywalker or the names in Avatar. So it would be interesting to look back at how unnoticed this character used to be. In the case of Thor's first film image (and in some ways the first), there is a teenage girl obsessed with Thor in 1987's "A Night at the Stilt House" who believes that one of the repairmen she meets is Thor, although the dude looks more like Mike Myers in "Anti-Witty Multi-Star".
The Marvel film and television drama Hulk and Thor in the 1970s
Some would see this storyline as evidence of Thor's popularity, but the opposite is true. In the original script, the teenage girl "fell in love at first sight" with Dan Rather, a mortal who doesn't have that much muscle, because she was a "news fan." Fortunately, even in the 1980s, some people thought the name sounded crazy, so they changed Dan Rather to Seaman, and eventually to Spider-Man. Marvel believes that Spider-Man can't appear in a nanny farce, and its other characters Captain America, Wolverine, Night Devil, and even Iron Man can't. Eventually, Marvel said, "We also have a guy named Thor. Take him and use it, and use it as you please. We don't care. "This IP is like helping your idle nephew find a job."
Then in the early '90s, Sam Raimi, along with Stan Lee, pitched the idea for a Thor movie to Fox Pictures, but was rejected by a confused supervisor on the grounds that it was "similar to the movie Hercules." After X-Men opened up superhero-style movies, Thor was just a minor character on UPN (now CW) and was cut. Thor in the comics experienced a similar amount of humiliation. In 1996, Marvel redesigned his form, giving him longer blonde hair and a crop top to make him look like Christina Aguilera after the apocalypse. Then they killed him, 100 percent out of pity.
Even before the release of the first Thor movie in 2011, Marvel put him to shame. In the new Ultimate series of comics from 2010, Thor arrives in Vahara after his death (and dies again), where the evil Hera tells him that if Thor can get himself pregnant, Thor can return to the atrium. Even more embarrassing, Thor's grieving girlfriend later sees Thor stealing in a Viking paradise in a magical illusion.
In the end, Thor wants to kill Hera because of her broken contract, but the next day Hera suddenly has a nine-month belly, either because the speed of time after death is different, or because the asgardian little tadpole is extremely efficient.
And in retrospect, the plot is even more lewd, because in the movie Thor and Hera are brothers and sisters. Talking about the obscene siblings, I have to mention the following:
4. Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver
Curious if The Quicksilver in the X-Men will return to the Marvel Universe
Surprisingly, the biggest dispute over the film rights of Marvel characters turned out to be about Quicksilver, a character whose superpowers were both "not as fast as The Flash" and "less whiteheads". As you might expect, Quicksilver has appeared in Fox Pictures' X-Men series and in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Although the Marvel version of Quicksilver soon collapsed due to director Joses Whedon's intense bloodthirsty desires, his scarlet witch sister, who had the extraordinary ability to manipulate reality and occasionally forgot her Eastern European accent, ended up being an important part of the series.
These are quite surprising, because the history of these two characters is very strange. Sure, the twins' father is Magneto, but the two of them were raised by a cow.
Even after being raised by Bova, the midwife Minotaur, Marvel's treatment of these two characters is a higher level of madness. The Ultimate Universe constantly implies that the two have some sort of incestuous relationship, like the two on the cover of a comic strip who are clearly dancing pornographic tango in a lightning storm.
After the final series changed authors, this move went far beyond the subtle signs in the original comics. When Captain America is surprised by Quicksilver's angry defense of his sister, we learn the dirty truth: the siblings are "in love."
The ensuing episode features the most disgusting use of onomatopoeia in human history, with Quicksilver saying to the witch, "Wanda, no matter what happens, I will always... BANG (Bang)" (What does BANG mean need not me to say it =.) =)
The twins were now fully Lannister-Cersei, in a grove of you and me, while Wolverine and the others hid in the bushes and watched like Skeezeball infused with Edelman's alloy.
None of this was done by a crazy fan who tricked him into a Marvel office for a day, but by Jeph Leob, the current head of Marvel's television division, who has also written for films like "Little Wolf." This means that fabricating a story of twins with superpowers has absurdly become a shortcut to promotion and salary increases.
3. Ant-Man is a wife-beating bastard and almost made a movie in the '80s for the disgusting Disney
Ant-Man (2015).
Ant-Man wasn't always as endearing as Paul Luther. Before his first film, and even before his debut on Saturday Night Live, the original Ant-Man Hank Pym was an annoying elf. In Ant-Man's most famous storyline, Pym (with the Yellow Jacket as the latest identity) creates the killing machine Ultron. When his wife said it was a bad idea, he slapped her backhand.
Although Ant-Man is a sadistic bastard at times, someone did want to make an Ant-Man movie in the 80s. Not because they loved Ant-Man, but because a competing studio wanted to disgust Disney, which was preparing to shoot "Honey, I Made Kids Smaller." They hurriedly began filming Ant-Man, hoping to "preempt Disney in the story of shrinking the body" and "no one will know who came up with this idea first".
Although the resentful film failed, Ant-Man eventually made it to the big screen again, not because of Marvel's special needs, but because Edgar Wright, the director of "Shaun of zombies," had the idea of making a film as early as 2004. After other studios refused to shoot, Marvel Studios agreed to shoot and announced the film's movements at Comic-Con two years before The Iron Man was released.
At the same time, Ant-Man becomes a bit in the comics.... Perverted. In the new series of Ant-Man comics, Hopeless Ant-Man, created by Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman, Ant-Man becomes a complete anti-hero, not only stealing but also spying on other superheroes in their baths. Although the film references some elements of the comic series, it is clear that no more "lively" shots are introduced, such as Ant-Man walking through Black Widow's cleavage.
Although HopelessLy Ante Struck was critically acclaimed, it was cut shortly after 12 volumes were released, just after the Announcement of the Ant-Man movie, and it may not be a coincidence. It's likely that Marvel doesn't want members of the new movie heroes, young and old, to stare at like Wolverine.
2. Doctor Strange will play baseball with the Devil and his head will explode at some point
Doctor Strange 2016
Although the idea of a bearded man in a cloak spending time alone in a New York apartment sounds super depressing, Doctor Strange has always been a very popular character. In the '80s and '90s, popular producers like Wes Craven and Alex Cox tried to make Doctor Strange's films, but all failed. Doctor Strange's hallucinogenicity is always closely related to the '60s, but that doesn't stop Marvel from taking a different path to keep the characters relevant. A look like the Twisted Sisters of the '80s, or a look that thankfully didn't ruin the whole work. In the 2010 comic book, Doctor Strange competed in a baseball game, but was soon sprinkled with cheese cornflakes. Doctor Strange ends up battling the devil — in a baseball game.
Doctor Strange also appeared in the Marvel Ultimate Comics Universe, but was brutally killed. While it's rare to kill a beloved character in a comic book, Marvel killed Doctor Strange in the most stupid and embarrassingly brutal way. Dormammu wrapped Himself in Doctor Strange's cloak and tightened it until Doctor Strange's head exploded like a balloon filled with tomato sauce. This scene may be less intimidating accompanied by some more whimsical harpsichord music, but who knows?
1. Groot was once the monster of the Reign of Terror Spider-Man dream
Groot Baby
There's no better proof that people like Van Diesel than you go to see his films even if you can't see him and he can only mumble the same five words. Tree Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy is one of the most popular characters in the MCU. But as we mentioned, Groot was initially unpopular and started out as a huge evil monster that looked like. Not only in his origin story, but also in the Marvel Universe Groot continues to make waves as a villain, vs. the Hulk, and even in spider-man comics, but only as Peter Parker's childhood nightmare. That's right, Marvel once drew the childhood anxieties of kids' favorite superheroes into comics and sold them to kids. In the comics, Peter Parker and Uncle Ben are attacked by monsters while out fishing.
Just a few years before the MCU started in 2005, Groot was one of a bunch of monsters wreaking havoc in the world. And similarly, Groot joined Nick Fury's Howl Commando, battling vampires and werewolves alongside them. That said, before 2008, Marvel was happy to portray Groot as a terrifying monster. In the same year that Marvel launched the MCU, the Guardians of the Galaxy also rebooted to form the version of the team we see today.
Looking back, it seems that Marvel wanted to reverse engineer its own movie series by completely reinventing the characters they still had the right to shoot, in order to fill the gap in their lack of iconic superhero teams like the X-Men and the Fantastic Four. As a result, Marvel transformed a wood monster that doesn't distinguish between right and wrong into a beloved hero, which is essentially the opposite of DC's strategy.