Marvel Studios: Industrial Convergence
I was reading an scholarly article written by Derek Johnson over the subject of Marvel Studios and its film production culture. Marvel Comics went bankrupt in the 1990′s after the publishing of comic books decreased significantly. In order to revive the company, Marvel Comics sold some of its comic book characters to establish Hollywood firms such as Sony and 20th Century Fox. With these partnerships, over eighteen films were made from 1998-2007. These films included greats such as the X-Men and Spider-Man. This gave a continuous flow of income that allowed the company to come back, and even allowed Marvel to create there own self-financed films, thus the creation of Marvel Studios. There was a lot of success with Iron Man, which was one of their first independent films. Marvel Studio’s success was due to the industrial convergence of the comics and film making. Their success was noticed by video-game publishers that wanted to use the knowledge of some of Marvel’s producers to create new titles. This media convergence caused a lot more exposure for all of Marvel Studio’s projects, leading to Disney buying the company for four billion dollars. With all of its success, Marvel Studios decided to use a crossover strategy that would allow them to create the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel used this new concept to continually build up to the release of The Avengers in 2012, with the use of cameos and end credit scenes in seemingly independent films. These strategies worked due to convergence cinema, using the audiences previous knowledge from the comics.
Before reading this article, I didn't have a clue what industrial convergence meant. I actually had to look it up in order to understand some parts of the article meant. Industrial Convergence is the merging of two or more different industries or media, such as the comics and films. The fact that Marvel was able to pull itself out of bankruptcy through the use of business with established Hollywood firms and then turn around and create their own independent film industry is very impressive. Though the company was later bought by Disney, it was a very great endeavor that Marvel had embarked on that really began to revolutionize filmmaking. I have to admit, when they began making some of the cameos I was completely lost to what they were gong at since I didn't read the comics. It encouraged me to start reading some of the comics in order to stay up to date with their media convergence. It wasn't much of a surprise that Marvel had such a great impact on filmmaking, especially after many great years of comics. They transfered over their expertise and also used their previous fan base in order to rapidly create blockbusters. I have gained a new found respect for Marvel and the business side of the company after reading the article.
Derek Johnson. "Cinematic Destiny: Marvel Studios and the Trade Stories of Industrial Convergence." Cinema Journal 52.1 (2012): 1-24. Project MUSE. Web. 12 Apr. 2015. <https://muse.jhu.edu/>.