The Marvel Studios Phenomenon

Marvel Studios has provided some of the biggest worldwide cinematic hits of the last eight years, from Iron Man (2008) to the record-breaking The Avengers (2012), and beyond. Having announced plans to extend its production of connected texts in cinema, network and online television until at least 2028, the new aesthetic patterns brought about by Marvel's 'shared' media universe demand analysis and understanding.

The Marvel Studios Phenomenon evaluates the studio's identity, as well as its status within the structures of parent Disney. In a new set of readings of key texts such as Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the thematics of superhero fiction and the role of fandom are considered. The authors identify milestones from Marvel's complex and controversial business history, allowing us to appraise its industrial status: from a comic publisher keen to exploit its intellectual property, to an independent producer, to successful subsidiary of a vast entertainment empire.

Autorentext

Martin Flanagan is Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Salford, UK. His work studies the forms of contemporary Hollywood entertainment, and he has explored the interface between Marvel comics and moving image media in articles for New Review of Film and Television Studies and Scope, and in the collections Web-spinning Heroics (2012) and Film and Comic Books (2007). His monograph, Bakhtin and the Movies: New Ways of Understanding Hollywood Film (2009), explores and situates superheroic narratives within wider Hollywood generic traditions.

Inhalt

Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: The Road to Marvel Studios

1. 'Films Lead Policy': Marvel's Industrial (R)evolution and the Birth of a Studio
2. An Organization of Storytellers: The Marvel Story, According to Marvel
3. 'Doth Mother know you weareth her drapes?': The Genre Tactics of Marvel Studios
4. Captains America
5. Teams/Screens
6. Star-Lord, Who?: Guardians of the Galaxy - Raiding the 'B-List' for New
   Legends
7. 'A Little Old-Fashioned...': Marvel Studios and Pixar
8. Tie-ins, Tie-ups and Let-downs: Marvel's Transmedia Empire
   Conclusion
   Appendix: Timeline
   Notes
   Bibliography
   Index