Marvel Cinematic Universe (minimateking30's version)

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is an American media franchise and shared film universe centered around the various super-heroes created by Marvel Comics, independently produced and distributed by Marvel Studios.

The development for the MCU began as far back as 2001, with producer Kevin Feige dreaming of a goal to replicate Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, and Jack Kirby's original vision of a shared universe of comics onto the big screen. After signing a deal with Paramount Pictures in 2005 to allow the studio to independently produce, finance, and distribute films based on their various super-heroes (At least, the ones that they hadn't given up the rights to, like Spider-Man and the X-Men), eventually leading up to a big screen adaptation of The Avengers. However, following the release of The Avengers, Marvel Studios began seeing the return of rights to their comic book properties, starting with the Fantastic Four and continuing with Spider-Man.

Each part of the MCU is divided into Phases; Phase 1 began with the release of Iron Man (2008) and concluded with The Avengers (2012). Phase 2 began with the release of Iron Man 3 (2013) and ended with Marvel's Spider-Man (2015). Phase 3 began with the release of Captain America: Civil War (2016), and is set to conclude with Avengers Forever (2019).

The MCU is the highest-grossing film franchise of all time, having grossed more than $15 billion dollars at the box office over the course of 10 years.