PC: Alternate Marvel CU's

Two ideas here:
  1. Sam Raimi pitched a Thor movie to Fox in 2001; later Sony Pictures held the rights to Thor for awhile, until late 2004. So what I'd like to know here is -- does this mean that, with a 2004 PoD, it might have been possible for a Thor movie to be made which takes place in the Sam Raimi Spiderman universe? If so, could this shared universe come to include other Marvel superheroes as well (e.g. Captain America)?
  2. New Line Cinema was looking to make an Iron Man movie, to be released in 2006. Could this have turned into a shared universe with Blade? And could other Marvel heroes (e.g. Doctor Strange)?
 
It's hard to see this happening. As hard as it is to imagine now, the idea of a shared cinematic universe was initially met with skepticism and seen as a huge risk. After all, it wasn't like the other studios lacked properties: Columbia had Spider-Man and Ghost Rider; Fox had X-Men and Daredevil; and of course WB had everything DC. The reason the MCU got going is because Marvel Studios was fully committed to the idea... and I can't imagine the film studios being anywhere near as interested.
 
The Marvel cinematic universe only happened because of luck for marvel, or more correctly, because they manage to turn a bad situation into a good one.

Marvel did not have the rights for their most important and well known characters: Spider-man, X-men and the fantastic four. The other studios were turning those characters into succesful comic book movies (yes, the fantastic four movie was succesful even its sequel made its money back). Marvel wanted some of that comicbook money too, so they turned to the only relatively well known characters they had lef: the Hulk and Ironman, neither of them that well known as Spider-man or the X-men (ok, maybe the Hulk was). The Hulk movie became a failure, but Ironman was surprisingly succesful. Only because of the unexpected succes of the Ironman movie they decided they might try to create an avengers movie.

So first they made a certain hit movie, Ironman 2. If that one had failed, the entirething would have blown of, but it was an unsurprising succes. Thor and Captain America were succesful enough to continue the process. If both had been as succesful as the incredible Hulk movie, avengers would have been called of.

Marvel never started out to create a shared universe, they simply had enough succes to be able to create a shared universe and now everyone wants it. If the cards had been different in any way, if Marvel still controled Spider-men and the X-men, if Ironman had not been such a success, if Captain America and Thor had failed, if etc, there would not have been a shared universe.

If a Thor movie would have been made in 2001 it would not have lead to a shared universe.Actualy I would even say it would probably turned into a failure.
Without Robert Downey Jr as Ironman, the chances of Ironman becoming a hitmovie are a lot smaller. It could easily be another Fantastic Four or even Green lantern, just another not as succesful comicbook movie.
 
It sounds like that New Line making Iron Man alone, even if it were a flop, would set back plans for OTL's MCU.
Yeah it probably would. If Ironman was a succes for New Line they would continue making Ironman movies without Marvel, if it was a failure, marvel wouldn't risk making an Ironman movie (like they aren't making a new Daredevil movie).

Also there weren't plans for an MCU, only until Ironman turned into a surprising hit, marvel decided to create a shared universe.
 
Marvel never started out to create a shared universe, they simply had enough succes to be able to create a shared universe and now everyone wants it.

I don't think that's true, since both Iron Man and Incredible Hulk had post-credits scenes that teased the idea of a crossover. It wasn't until Iron Man 2 they really started playing up the idea, but certainly they were open to the idea from the very beginning.

That said, I think what really helped the MCU actually work is that Marvel had a coherent stable of characters to draw from; characters that historically worked together and thematically fit together. None of the other studios' properties mesh nearly as well... Spider-Man and Thor is a particularly odd pairing to serve as the core of a shared universe.

I think, if you want an earlier MCU (from whatever studio), the first step is to give them properties that make sense to crossover. Have Sony/Columbia pick up Fantastic Four and/or Daredevil to go along with Spider-Man, and you've got potential.
 
That said, I think what really helped the MCU actually work is that Marvel had a coherent stable of characters to draw from; characters that historically worked together and thematically fit together. None of the other studios' properties mesh nearly as well... Spider-Man and Thor is a particularly odd pairing to serve as the core of a shared universe.

I think, if you want an earlier MCU (from whatever studio), the first step is to give them properties that make sense to crossover. Have Sony/Columbia pick up Fantastic Four and/or Daredevil to go along with Spider-Man, and you've got potential.

This could also work with New Line. IIRC they had the Morbius rights (meaning no Spider-Man), and if they got Dr. Strange, Ghost Rider, maybe even a dark horse candidate like Daimon Hellstorm, there's your Midnight Sons-verse.
 
I don't think that's true, since both Iron Man and Incredible Hulk had post-credits scenes that teased the idea of a crossover. It wasn't until Iron Man 2 they really started playing up the idea, but certainly they were open to the idea from the very beginning.
I don't think it was a serious idea after Ironman. It was just a bit of fun. Not unlike a vilain who appears to be beaten, but in the end you get a "or is he?" shot. Or something like in the incredible Hulk where another villain is teased but never followed up on. Basicly there were no concrete plans when they made Iron Man two. Those only appeared after the movie had been a success.


I think, if you want an earlier MCU (from whatever studio), the first step is to give them properties that make sense to crossover. Have Sony/Columbia pick up Fantastic Four and/or Daredevil to go along with Spider-Man, and you've got potential.

This could also work with New Line. IIRC they had the Morbius rights (meaning no Spider-Man), and if they got Dr. Strange, Ghost Rider, maybe even a dark horse candidate like Daimon Hellstorm, there's your Midnight Sons-verse.
The thing about a shared universe is that people didn't even consider it before Marvel. Even DC never actualy considered introducing superman into the Nolan's batman movies. So if two compatable superheroes are owned by the same studio that is actualy making succesful superhero movies out of all their franchise, they wouldn't create a shared universe. At best, you get a possible crossovermovie after the seperate series aren't succesful anymore (think alien vs predator).
 
Had Fox won the rights to Spider-Man in the 1990's during that long fight I could see Spider-Man and X-Men eventually inhabiting the same universe or more precisely the Spider-Man films would have been set in a world that could also accommodate the events that take place in the X-Men films.

As I recall Cameron's outline was full of references to Mutants and the main antagonist was going to be a reinvented version of a Spider-Man villain into someone who's more in line with the X-Men franchise.

Had Cameron's movie somehow been made instead of Raimi's you'd have a Spider-Man film that references mutants and potentially owned by the same studio that produces the X-Men films. In that world I could imagine films set in more or less the same world over time as cross-references pile up. I can't see there ever being an Avengers style movie here. This is more a matter of a minor Cameron franchise Spider-Man villain showing up in an X-Men film, more references to the existence of mutants in the Spider-Man films etc.

That's about as close as I think we can come to a Marvel Cinematic Universe prior to the actual one.

I may be remembering Cameron's outline incorrectly though. And I mean the outline not the script he wrote extremely quickly and was almost intentionally terrible.
 
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