While fans were very excited at the prospect of a Marvel Cinematic Universe, not everyone had faith that it would actually work out. Creating a film superfranchise that consisted of a bunch of other franchises? Could audiences follow that? Would the stories be told in a way that was actually pretty accessible? 

The answer ended up being yes, but as it turns out, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige had another film franchise he used as a reference for the movies, and it’s kind of surprising to me.

“I always default to my experience watching Harry Potter movies,” Feige said in a recent Q&A at the New York Film Academy. “I never read the Harry Potter books. My kids aren’t old enough and aren’t into it yet, and I didn’t read them when they first came out, but I went to see every Harry Potter movie opening weekend. I saw it and I enjoyed it and then I forgot all about it and didn’t think about it again until the next Harry Potter movie came out. And those movies were so well made because I could follow it all. I could follow it, I could track it, occasionally I have to go ‘Who was that?’ but for the most part I could totally track it.”

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Honestly, this perspective kind of surprised me, as I feel like movies five through eight of the Harry Potter series are actually kind of terrible at getting audiences up to speed. This is especially the case with the last two (and that’s not even to mention the tons of plotholes they have), so that they are an inspiration for Feige is kind of odd.

Regardless, whether or not I agree doesn’t matter. They focused on creating stories that are largely standalone in nature, and didn’t really go deep into serialization until Phase 3 of the MCU, and even with that phase, there are tons of movies that are mostly standalone in nature.

So, all’s well that end’s well, I guess. Now, as they get more ambitious, it seems as though new films will rely more and more on previous ones, though we’ll see if that’s actually the case as the universe expands into Disney+.

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SOURCE: NYFA (via EW)