Marvel Cinematic Universe

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is the most successful experiment in serialized blockbuster storytelling yet attempted. Beginning in 2008, Marvel Studios built an interconnected continuity in which standalone hero films feed into ensemble crossovers, a structure borrowed from decades of comic-book publishing and proven viable at cinema scale.

The result reshaped Hollywood. Rival studios scrambled to assemble their own shared universes, rarely with the same payoff, and the multi-film arc became the industry's default ambition. The franchise has since spread across streaming television, animation, tie-in games, and a deep bench of orchestral scores, all orbiting one continuity.

Its defining trait is interdependence: the sense that every entry is a chapter rather than a self-contained story, for better and, increasingly, for worse.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise spans 22 series, 11 books, 135 games, 159 films in the CrossBinge catalog.