The Avengers was the real beginning of the ‘Marvel movie’ as we know it
polygon.comTen years ago, the Avengers first assembled on movie theater screens around the world. Marvel’s The Avengers made $1.5 billion in May of 2012 and, whether anyone likes it or not, changed how audiences think about movies. But the success of the movie didn’t just change our world, it changed how Marvel produced their fictional one, as well.
The Avengers was proof that audiences didn’t just want one-line references to other comics or visual Easter eggs buried in the background of shots. They wanted an entire world depicted on screen, and they wanted to see their favorite characters interact in it. But, most crucially, it turned the Marvel movie — and the idea of the superhero movie, in general — from a solo story into a crossover ensemble film. Every Marvel movie is now an Avengers movie, to some degree.
The 2012 Avengers was the sixth installment in, and culmination of, a sequence of movies now referred to as “Phase 1” of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Each movie preceding The Avengers introduced characters who would then “assemble” in the final movie, which was written and directed by Joss Whedon, with a story by Zak Penn. The movie’s basic plot is both fairly straightforward and, also, sort of a rats nest.
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The Avengers opens with Loki, the villain from Thor, hypnotizing Dr. Erik Selvig, the astrophysicist from Thor working for Nick Fury (who himself graduated from the post-credits scene of Iron Man to a supporting role in Iron Man 2) and Fury’s agent Clint Barton, who briefly appeared in Thor. Loki forces Selvig and Barton to help him steal the tesseract, an alien artifact first introduced in Captain America: The First Avenger, which then causes Nick Fury to ask one of his other agents, Natasha Romanoff, who
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