It’s been just over a decade since Marvel Studios changed the face of movie franchises forever. Ever since Tony Stark was recruited by Nick Fury to lead the “Avengers Initiative,” every other studio has scrambled to piece their loosely connected intellectual properties together to build up an MCU-style shared cinematic universe.
Marvel Studios was really onto something, since they now have millions of viewers flocking to theaters three times a year to watch their movies, but the other studios have struggled to replicate that success. So, here are 5 Failed Attempts At Cinematic Universes (And 5 That Could Still Succeed).
10. Failed: Dark Universe
The old black-and-white Universal Monsters movies were real ground-breakers back in the ‘30s and ‘40s. And with the way they crossed over with one another and built a fictional world inhabited by characters from a few different movies, they essentially made up the earliest template for what would eventually become the “cinematic universe.”
So, naturally, Universal was giddy to bring them all back in a modern, star-studded, MCU-style franchise. They cast Tom Cruise in a remake of the franchise has been all but called off.
9. Could still succeed: Fast & Furious
A few years ago, the entire among the highest grossing movies of all time.
This year, we’ll be seeing how it fares outside the core series of films with the spin-off their dynamic from the main film series, has been generating a lot of buzz.
8. Failed: The LEGO Movie
Back in 2014, The LEGO Movie was expected to crash and burn. But then pundits were surprised when it received glowing reviews and built up a box office haul of over $469 million. However, their attempts to turn that success into an expanded fictional universe have proven less fruitful.
a financial disappointment earlier this year.
7. Could still succeed: Transformers
Most moviegoers lost interest in Michael Bay’s the fun, vibrant, nostalgic cinematic experience we’d been waiting for. Long gone are the days of Bay’s computer-generated smash-‘em-ups.
The future of the Transformers franchise rests on smaller, yet still spectacular (and only slightly smaller – Bumblebee still cost over $100 million to produce), character-focused movies. Hopefully, Paramount can learn the right lessons from Bumblebee’s success and the franchise can have a bright future.
6. Failed: Ghostbusters
Paul Feig’s all-female Ghostbusters reboot wasn’t a bad movie. However, the combination of boycotts from sexist trolls and a $144 million production budget meant that it was a box office failure. At the end of the day, it was a comedy movie. It may have had supernatural elements and CGI effects, but its closest genre association is comedy.
Even the most successful comedies rarely make more than $100 million to $200 million. It was simply unwise to spend that much money on it. Before the movie’s financial disappointment, Sony was planning a wide-ranging franchise spanning sequels, spin-offs, and even an animated series.
5. Could still succeed: The Conjuring
Some would argue that the highest grossing horror movies ever made.
However, while the MCU is generally reliable for quality, The Curse of La Llorona. It’s always dependable horror fare, but it’s not breaking any new ground and it favors cheap jump scares over real suspense.
4. Failed: The Amazing Spider-Man
After The Amazing Spider-Man 2 as the inception of their own personal Marvel Comics universe.
But where Marvel Studios has a shared universe based on their whole back catalogue of Avengers, Sony was planning to make Spider-Man 3 and it became clear that audiences weren’t interested in seeing it turned into a tri-annual commitment.
3. Could still succeed: MonsterVerse
There have so far been two movies in Legendary Pictures’ MonsterVerse: 2014’s without losing the sense of awe and adventure that the originals had.
Things are looking equally promising for this year’s Godzilla vs. Kong will bust the whole thing wide open next year.
2. Failed: X-Men
With the rights to both the X-Men and the Fantastic Four, 20th Century Fox had a lucrative opportunity to have the secondary MCU. Fox’s Marvel universe could’ve been like the Winter Olympics to Disney’s MCU. Unfortunately, they just couldn’t make it work. They had a series that worked and then they introduced a new cast with a prequel and it went quickly downhill from there.
Fox wanted to have a series of X-Men Origins movies, but after the first one, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, was slated by critics and audiences, they were all called off. Fox couldn’t adapt to a post-MCU landscape and that’s why they’ve ended up selling most of their assets to Disney.
1. Could still succeed: DC Extended Universe
The DC Extended Universe came out of the gate as a pale imitation of the MCU, building on the modest success of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Early on, the DCEU’s movies focused heavily on their interconnectivity and failed to stand on their own as movies.
They also there’s hope for the DCEU after all.
