Essay --

Throughout history the human race has sought forms of entertainment. Whether it be in the form of a simple game, a grandiose tournament or a simple play production, we have always sought to entertain ourselves. In recent years as the film industry has continued to grow and evolve a new genre has emerged the mainstream popular culture. One big idea changed the course of a genre and an entire Industry. That would be comic book movies. The first moderately successful Marvel film was X-Men, this was the first time that the superhero genre made a successful transition from the comic book to the silver screen. It was a movie that was enjoyable not only just for fans but for non-fans of the comics as well. X-Men was released in 2000, the budget for the film was $75 million, which is incredibly lowed compared to the average movie budget which is between $120-200 million these days. The Box office total for the film was $296,339,527, which back in 2000 would have been a rather respectable box office take. Something to keep in mind about this movie is that the computer generated special effects that are so common in movies today, were rather under developed, which would lend to the smaller budget as well as the more practical effects that are featured in the movie. This is also why the film feels rather bland when one goes back and watches it now, there was a lot of walking and talking in this film, not much action. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Men_film http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_movies Prior to the X-Men movies though there had been three other Marvel movies that had been released, however all three could be deemed failures. The three films were the 1989 The Punisher, which was actually released directly... ... the Guardians of the Galaxy in August, and the Avengers 2 in 2015, followed by Ant-Man. Marvel has also made a deal with Netflix to create four shows based off their characters to be released in 2015, starting with Daredevil, which is a major slap in the face to 20th century Fox who previously owned the rights and I love it. The awesome part is that these shows will take place in the established Marvel Cinematic Universe, then the four characters are going to come together into a mini series called the defenders which is comparable to the avengers. This just goes to show how this idea of the shared universe has spread beyond just the cinema now, but to television as well, and not only just television but online movie streaming. These shows will never actually be released on television, but purely on Netflix. Which will be a massive boost for Netflix and for marvel.