- In the beginning, there was only darkness. An endless expanse of emptiness that stretched beyond the infinite. And then... there was everything.
- —TheFancaster
Part One: The Beginning
By 2005, Marvel Entertainment had begun planning to produce its own films independently and distribute them through Paramount Pictures. Previously, Marvel had co-produced several superhero films with Columbia Pictures, New Line Cinema and others, including a seven-year development deal with 20th Century Fox. Marvel made relatively little profit from its licensing deals with other studios and wanted to get more money out of its films while maintaining artistic control of the projects and distribution. Avi Arad, head of Marvel's film division, was pleased with Sam Raimi's Spider-Man films at Sony, but was less pleased with others. As a result, Arad decided to form Marvel Studios, Hollywood's first major independent film studio since DreamWorks.
In 2008, at 33 years old, Feige was named studio chief. In order to preserve its artistic integrity, Marvel Studios formed a creative committee of six people familiar with its comic book lore: Feige, Marvel Studios co-president Louis D'Esposito, Marvel Comics' president of publishing Dan Buckley, Marvel's chief creative officer Joe Quesada, writer Brian Michael Bendis, and Marvel Entertainment president Alan Fine, who oversaw the committee. Feige initially referred to the shared narrative continuity of these films as the "Marvel Cinema Universe", but later used the term "Marvel Cinematic Universe". Since the franchise expanded to other media, this phrase has been used by some to refer to the feature films only. Marvel designated the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Earth-199999 within the continuity of the company's comic multiverse, a collection of fictional alternate universes.
Part Two: Obscure Heroes
Although all the characters were under one house, Feige had been adamant on using lesser known heroes such as Thor, Ant-Man, Black Panther, and Doctor Strange, However, the execs up at Marvel were hesitant to make movies out of them. A lot of the characters Marvel had were B-list at best, obscure to the mainstream public and only known by comic fans. Despite growing concern, Feige followed suit as the first film, Iron Man, started pre-production. Feige assured the studio the risk would be worth it, and had Spider-Man and X-Men placed in Phase One, to ease their concerns.
Part Three: Phases
| Phase One: Origins |
- Iron Man - May 2nd, 2008
- The Incredible Hulk - June 8th, 2008
- Wolverine: Origins - May 1st, 2009
- Iron Man 2 - May 7th, 2010
- Thor - May 6th, 2011
- X-Men: First Class - June 3rd, 2011
- Captain America: The First Avenger - July 22nd, 2011
- The Avengers - May 4th, 2012
- The Amazing Spider-Man - July 3rd, 2012
| Phase Two: Trials & Tribulations |
- Iron Man 3 - May 3rd, 2013
- The Wolverine - July 26th, 2013
- Fantastic Four - September 7th, 2013
- Thor: The Dark World - November 8th, 2013
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier - April 4th, 2014
- The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - May 2nd, 2014
- X-Men: Second Genesis- May 23rd, 2014
- Guardians Of The Galaxy - August 1st, 2014
- Avengers: Age Of Ultron - May 1st, 2015
- Ant-Man - July 17th, 2015
- Fantastic Four: Doomsday - August 7th, 2015
- Deadpool - February 12th, 2016
| Phase Three: Endgame |
- Captain America: Civil War - May 6th, 2016
- X-Men: Rise Of Sinister - May 27th, 2016
- Doctor Strange - November 4th, 2016
- The Wolverine III - March 3rd, 2017
- Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 - May 5th, 2017
- The Amazing Spider-Man 3 - July 7th, 2017
- Thor: Ragnarök - November 3rd, 2017
- Black Panther - February 16th, 2018
- Avengers: Infinity War - April 27th, 2018
- Deadpool 2 - May 18th, 2018
- Ant-Man & The Wasp - July 6th, 2018
- Captain Marvel - October 10th. 2018
- Ghost Rider - January 10th, 2019
- Inhumans - April 8th, 2019
- Avengers: Endgame - May 26th, 2019
- The Amazing Spider-Man 4 - July 2nd, 2019
| Phase Four: Reborn |
- Moon Knight- February 10th, 2020
- CURRENT SLATE FOR NOW… WILL BE UPDATED NEXT YEAR.-
| Part Four: Television |
NETFLIX:
- Daredevil - (2015-2018, 2020-)
- Jessica Jones (2015-2019)
- Luke Cage (2016-2018)
- Iron Fist (2017-2019)
- The Defenders (2017)
- The Punisher (2017-2019)
- Venom (2018-)
- X-Factor Investigations (2021-)
ABC:
- Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D (2013-2020)
- Agent Carter (2015-2018)
- Secret Avengers (2017-2019)
FX:
- Black Widow & Hawkeye (2013)
- Legion (2017-2019)
- The Gifted (2017-2019)
- The New Mutants (2020)
- The Sensational She-Hulk (2020-)
HULU:
- The Runaways (2017-2019)
- Hellstrom (2019-2023)
- Morbius (2019-2021)
FREEFORM
- Cloak & Dagger (2018-2020)
DISNEY +:
- WandaVision (2021-)
- Hawkeye (2021)
- Alpha Flight (2021)
| One Shots |
- Vanishing! - September 9th, 2011
- The Consultant - September 13th, 2011
- A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Thor's Hammer - October 25th, 2011
- Item 47 - September 25th, 2012
- Unscheduled Stop - November 9th, 2012
- Yancy Street King - January 28th, 2014
- All Hail The King - February 4th, 2014
- The Raccoon & Tree - December 9th, 2014
| Digital Media |
- WHIH Newsfront (2015-2016)
- Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Slingshot (2016)
- The Joe Rogan Experience #4104- J. Jonah Jameson (2019)