Some movies change the face of cinema forever. Citizen Kane is retroactively discussed as one of the greatest films of all time, but in its heyday it was renowned more for its technological prowess. Jaws is regarded as the first summer blockbuster. Star Wars showed that movies could create dynasties. The Jazz Singer brought colour to life. Snow White brought animation to the big screen, which was then built upon by Mary Poppins, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Toy Story, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:and Into the Spider-Verse. A good movie doesn't necessarily change the industry, and a movie doesn't need to be good in order to change the industry. 15 years ago this week, the face of cinema had one of its most monumental changes, and we didn't even realise.
On May 2, 2008, Iron Man hit US cinemas for the first time. It had been out in Australia for two weeks at that point, a release schedule unheard of for MCU movies these days, and at the time we only kinda liked it. It was made for a budget of $150 million and grossed just below $600 million, making for a pretty average success. It was a good superhero movie, and back then, the chances of that happening were around 50/50. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Spider-Man, X-Men, and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Batman Begins had already broken the fresh ground of su🅺perhero movies having♏ some substance, and Iron Man was quickly drowned out by The Dark Knight arriving less than two months later.
In short, no one really cared. Robert Downey Jr. made his comeback, everyone liked him, but the public had no real idea of the MCU as an idea. It had a post-credit scene, but few bothered to watch it because back then nobody stayed in their seats once the credits started rolling, and what it teased seemed abstract and weird. It was followed by movies for Captain America and Thor, which were very much their own thing. A guy named Hawkeye was in Thor, but we barely knew who he was and we cared even less. We even had Iron Man 2, which brought us Black Widow, before the party started with Avengers.
Of course, the other Avenger was Hulk, who was introduced in a movie that dropped between Iron Man and The Dark Knight, and was on the flipside of the ol' superhero 50/50. It made back its budget, but brought in less than half of what Iron Man made, and by the time Avengers rolled around, there was very little noise made about the fact Ed Norton had been recast with Mark Ruffalo, after issues with the script. Because even fewer people watched the post-credits scene of that one, many people don't realise that Robert Downey Jr. appeared in it as Iron Man, starting to tie things together.
As for Iron Man itself, it was a solid superhero movie. Beginning, middle, and end all held up to logic, and there was a charismatic character at the heart of it, and the action sequences looked good. It did everything it needed to do. It was half-expected to flop - RDJ was way down the list of choices for the role, and he has noted that the studio left them alone so much that it felt like an independent movie. It didn't do anything different, and so a lot of people point to Avengers as the movie that changed the world. To have characters from assorted movies team up in a cohesive way had never been done before, and it gave birth to a new era of cinema. But that started with Iron Man, not with Avengers.
It's easy to do the Avengers thing. As long as you have characters, you can have a team up. DC famously rushed its Justice League movie ahead of establishing characters, and so will🐲 now need to spend years figuring out how to reboot things back to normal. There's currently talk of a Nintendo Cinematic Universe, despite only one movie being released. Squid Game producers 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:talked up a Squid Game Universe, whatever that means. Netflix is making a universe out of real life serial killers, starting with Dahmer. The universe part is simple - everyone has some characters they c🧔an throw in a blender. The hard part is sowing those seeds.
Avengers was only able to reap the rewards because of the work toiling in the fields by Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man 2. Maybe we as an audience weren't compelled to fill theatres for Iron Man because we needed to see the next episode of the MCU, and maybe the studio was planning to quietly wrap things up if it all failed. But Iron Man knew what it was doing, abandoning secret identities (a line ad-libbed by RDJ), establishing the real world stakes of warfare, and introducing Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury. The MCU started here, even if the name came later.
The reason modern cinema is chasing franchises and cinematic universes, the reason we're seeing others rally against this by inverting tropes, and the whole reason we all know what a cinematic universe even is is because of Iron Man. 15 years ago, cinema changed forever. Iron Man was The Jazz Singer of our times.