Iron Man was a resounding success. To date, it has earned nearly $600 million on a reported budget of around $140 million. Marvel’s initial goal was to make a series of character-centric films that would lead to a team-up movie, bringing all the characters from prior films together, called The Avengers. The next step on that journey was The Incredible Hulk. This one didn’t have quite the same success as Iron Man. Budgeted at $150 million, its opening weekend only earned $55.5 million and stands with a current earnings total of just over $260 million. Still, it was successful enough to continue pushing towards the goal.  
Next came a sequel to Iron Man, followed by Thor. In a recent interview with Uproxx, director Kenneth Branagh spoke about the tumultuous times at Marvel following the, by comparison, mediocre performance of The Incredible Hulk. According to Branagh, if Thor had not been successful, it most likely would have been the end of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, stating, “No question that Kevin Feige used to say to me, “This is the single most difficult tonal challenge for us, to make this movie work in itself and fit into this large universe”. The worries were in vain, however, as Thor was a success and has, to date, made a grand total of $450 million on its $150 million budget.  
Subsequent to Thor, Marvel saw success with both Captain America: The First Avenger and 2012’s The Avengers. With a reported budget of $220 million, The Avengers has gone on to become the fifth highest-grossing film of all time, with a current total of $1.5 billion. Four years and six films into their plan, Marvel had an undisputable hit, and the rest of the industry was beginning to pay close attention.  
Marvel’s largest competitor on the comic book side, DC Comics, took inspiration from the success of the Marvel movies, and decided to launch their own extended movie universe. Just a year after The Avengers, DC, in partnership with Warner Bros., released a fresh take on Superman. Entitled Man of Steel, it had a strong opening for DC, bringing in $123 million in its opening weekend. In 2014, a year after the release of Man of Steel, DC and Warner Bros. Entertainment officially announced a plan to launch their own cinematic universe, including ten films to be released over the next six years.  
Three years later, and only three of those films have been released. Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice was a financial success, earning an opening weekend of $171 million, but the critical reaction is incredibly divisive. While Marvel’s movies tend to be more lighthearted and colorful with a mix of action and comedy, DC’s films have a much darker and more serious aesthetic. Suicide Squad, the next film in the series, was a moderate financial success, but was not well-liked by most critics or audiences. It earned the top spot in Rolling Stone’s list of the worst movies of 2016. Post Suicide Squad, DC did have a unanimous success in the summer of 2016 with Wonder Woman, and their team-up movie, Justice League, opened to mixed but mostly positive reviews in November of 2017.  
Other imitators haven’t fared quite so well. Universal Studios attempted to create a new shared universe using their classic stable of monster movies. The first movie in this endeavor was 2017’s The Mummy. When it severely underperformed, the project lost its writers and producers. Toy company Hasbro is even planning to combine some of their properties with the already existing Transformers franchise. This project hasn’t exited the development stage yet, so it is yet to be soon how it will fare.  
