Earth-2021358, also known as the Marvel Cinematic Universe, is a shared universe between many Marvel films first released in 2008.
Production[]
In the 1990s, Marvel went bankrupt and thus were unable to make their future films, being forced to give away the film rights to different film companies such as Sony given the rights to Spider-Man and Fox given the rights to X-Men and the Fantastic Four.
In 2005, Marvel was met with Merril Lynch and they agreed to make a film based on The Avengers and to at first introduce these heroes separately as Marvel didn't give away the rights to Iron Man, Captain America, or Thor, as their rights bounced around with failure to make these films from other companies, and thus they agreed and decided to make Iron Man their first film to make it based around the team's leader though it was a challenge since the character wasn't very popular at the time.
As well, another problem would be that Marvel needed to have Avenger Hulk, though his rights were taken by Universal Studios, however following the cancellation of the sequel to 2003's Hulk, Marvel and Universal collaborated on The Incredible Hulk which was made due to Hulk 2 cancellation and since the Hulk was much more popular than Iron Man at the time, and with Louis Leterrier directing the project to make up for the fact that he was unable to direct Iron Man.
Despite the Hulk being more popular than Iron Man, Iron Man was more successful than The Incredible Hulk critically and Box-Office.
Meanwhile, in 2006 at the same time Jon Favreau was working on Iron Man, Edgar Wright helped work on Ant-Man, which was being made before Iron Man and thus needed a rewrite to fit into the continuity. Matthew Vaughn meanwhile was working on a Thor film with an attached release date for 2010 though it was pushed back to 2011 due to Ant-Man's release. Captain America's release from 2008 was pushed back since Jon Favreau left the project to direct Iron Man though Joe Johnston approached Marvel to direct the film. In 2009, Marvel had helped write scripts on obscure characters Guardians of the Galaxy, Vision, Black Panther, and Doctor Strange.
It was released in 2011 with filming in 2010. After all of these films, The Avengers was released in 2012 with all of these characters as well as Ant-Man character Hope van Dyne becoming The Wasp as teased in that movie's post-credit scene.
As well some time in 2010, following the cancellation of Sony's Spider-Man 4 the rights were reverted to Marvel though the companies were forced to collaborate and thus The Amazing Spider-Man was going to be released in 2012; but however choosing an actor to replace Tobey MaGuire was a tough choice. Andrew Garfield offered himself but he was rejected due to not having the characteristics of "nerdy Peter Parker". Due to this, It took a few years for them to look for an actor and thus continued production was put on hiatus for a few years and the original people working for the film had joined to work on The Avengers (2012) and thus it seemed that The Amazing Spider-Man was cancelled, but Sony confirmed on Instagram that it was simply put on hiatus along with other projects including the ones mentioned above; however it was confirmed that Vision would appear in a sequel to The Avengers. They had also begun working on sequels to Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger were all confirmed at Comic-Con 2011 and that Jon Favreau is the only director to return for a sequel but also revealed that the Guardians of the Galaxy film was not put on hiatus but in continued production and to be released after the Captain America sequel, which was to be released sometime in 2014. After The Avengers was released, Marvel confirmed Thor: The Dark World to be released on May 3, 2013 and Iron Man 3 on November 8, 2013.
Films[]
Phase 1[]
- Iron Man- May 2, 2008
- The Incredible Hulk- June 13, 2008
- Iron Man 2- May 7, 2010
- Black Widow- June 1, 2010
- Thor- May 7, 2011
- Captain America: The First Avenger- July 22, 2011
- The Avengers- May 4, 2012
Phase 2[]
- Thor: The Dark World- May 3, 2013
- Iron Man 3- November 8, 2013
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier- April 4, 2014
- Ant-Man 2- July 11, 2014
- Guardians of the Galaxy- August 1, 2014
- The Avengers 2- May 1, 2015
- The Incredible Hulk 2- July 17, 2015
Phase 3[]
- Loki- March 11, 2016
- Captain America: Civil War- May 6, 2016
- Doctor Strange- November 4, 2016
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2- May 5, 2017
- The Amazing Spider-Man- July 3, 2017
- Thor: Ragnarok- November 3, 2017
- World War Hulk- January 2, 2018
- Black Panther- February 13, 2018
- Avengers: Infinity War- May 4, 2018
- Captain Marvel- March 8, 2019
- Avengers: Infinity Gauntlet- May 3, 2019
- The Amazing Spider-Man 2- July, 2019.
Phase 4[]
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3- March 9, 2020
- Iron Man 4- May 1, 2020
- Doctor Strange 2- November 6, 2020
- Black Panther: Kingdom of Beasts- February 12, 2021
- X-Men- May 7, 2021
- The Amazing Spider-Man 3- July, 2021
- The Fantastic Four- November 5, 2021
- Captain Marvel 2- March 12, 2022
- Ant-Man and the Ant-Corps- July 29, 2022
Phase 5[]
- Avengers: Secret Wars- 2023