[What Day Is May 3rd?] The Day Iron Man Was Released [10th Anniversary]

Today, 3 May, is the day the first Iron Man opened in the US!

https://geektyrant.com/news/video-gives-recap-of-all-mcu-movies-in-6-minutes-in-lead-up-to-infinity-war

The first Iron Man

Marvel at the time were on the brink of bankruptcy.

So Marvel bet the company on this film, and with no money to outsource anything, they made it almost entirely in-house.

And on top of that they cast Robert Downey Jr., who was in the middle of his drug problems, in the lead!!

Maybe people thought they were already finished…

But then it opened, and off a $140,000,000 budget it took $585,174,222 at the box office!!!

Amazing!!

Just too amazing!!!

The beginning of the MCU

A phenomenal start for the MCU!

At the end of Iron Man, Nick Fury gets a line that makes you think of the Avengers.

So they already had the idea back then…?

And now it’s finally been ten years.

The Marvel logo in Infinity War wasn’t

MARVEL STUDIOS

but

MARVEL STUD10S

— a cheeky little bit of wordplay slipped right in.

Ahh~ that really does make me happy.

The MCU brought a revolution to cinema

Here’s the remarkable thing about the MCU. Up until then, a film sequel mostly meant the same title with a subtitle stuck on the end. That was the mainstream way of doing it. But the MCU tells the stories of all sorts of different characters almost in parallel, lets each film feed into the others, and then merges them all into a big title like the Avengers series — a completely new way of making films.

Remarkable, isn’t it! Truly!

Probably it amounts to taking the way comics do it and trying it straight in film. But once you actually do that, the work grows exponentially with the number of films — painstaking story alignment across cast and crew, checking there are no contradictions in the setup, checking the thing still holds together as a screenplay.

And even so, the MCU keeps doing the best work out there to this day. Hats off.

I’ll keep cheering them on.

Recommended posts

Right, let me point out the MCU posts I’d really love people to read.

On Infinity War

On where the MCU goes next

https://movie-paradise-blog.com/2018/03/%e3%80%90%e4%ba%88%e6%83%b3%e3%80%91%e3%80%8emcu%e3%81%ae%e4%bb%8a%e5%be%8c%e3%81%a8%e3%83%95%e3%82%a7%e3%82%a4%e3%82%ba4%e3%80%8f%e3%80%90%e3%83%9e%e3%83%bc%e3%83%99%e3%83%abmarvel%e3%80%91/

On Avengers 4

https://movie-paradise-blog.com/2018/04/%e3%80%90%e5%ae%9a%e6%9c%9f%e4%ba%88%e6%83%b3%e3%80%91%e3%80%8e%e3%82%a2%e3%83%99%e3%83%b3%e3%82%b8%e3%83%a3%e2%80%95%e3%82%ba-%e3%82%a4%e3%83%b3%e3%83%95%e3%82%a3%e3%83%8b%e3%83%86%e3%82%a3%e3%83%bb/