Cinematic Universes
Batman is fighting alongside Wonder Woman, Cyborg, and the Flash; Characters from across mediums and storylines are master builders in a world made of legos; Russell Crowe is playing Dr. Jekyll in The Mummy; and in 2020 Godzilla and King Kong are going to fight each other. This is the crazy world of shared universes, often called cinematic universes when it comes to films. But what are shared universes, and why are so many of them coming out right now?
A shared universe is a collection of stories, often written and produced by different artists, that exist in the same setting and tie into one another. Shared universes have been around for longer than cinema itself; From the Cthulhu Mythos to the Oz stories, having multiple authors take a crack at the same setting is a long-standing tradition. One could even argue that the works that make up our understanding of ancient mythologies are shared universes. After all, Homer wasn’t the only one that wrote about the Greek gods.
Cinematic universes themselves have been around for longer than you’d think. The Universal Monsters universe was a series of black and white monster movies made by Universal Studios, featuring monsters such as Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Mummy.
Many of these movies are considered classics of their genre. The first movie in this universe, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, was released in 1923, and the first monster movie crossover was twenty years later. However, cinematic universes have never been as popular, or as successful, as they are now.
So why are so many cinematic universes coming out now? For most studios it’s a business decision. If you’ve ever heard of the term “cinematic universe” before, it’s probably in relation to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the wildly successful behemoth that includes everything from The Avengers to Luke Cage. It’s arguably the most successful cinematic universe of all time, and every other studio wants to take a piece of that pie. Men in Black, Star Wars, Transformers, and even Ghostbusters are trying to become inter- connected franchises.
Both the DC Extended Universe and a rebooted Universal Monsters universe have seen ever-shrinking profit margins as critics continue to bash their movies relentlessly. On the other hand, Marvel Studio’s continues to make money hand-over fist. So it’s hard to tell if people actually want cinematic universes, or if they just like Chris Evan’s abs.
