Avengers (2012)

Avengers marked the conclusion for Marvel phase one, which was a long road that paid dividends to Marvel Studios and set in motion an expanding universe.
When the comic book publication company filed for bankruptcy in 1998, the decision for the selling off of filming and distribution rights on some of its most successful intellectual properties allowed Marvel to stem the tide.  It took strong leadership and a creative team to keep the company together and to bounce back, Avi Arad who was primarily regulated to overseeing toy marketing and film distribution understood what makes these characters special. It was conflicts among themselves as well as their enemies. It was a benchmark of what makes a Marvel character. Avi Arad as a producer was present on film sets to ensure that there was tension between cyclops and wolverine over Jean Grey, and Xavier saw his friend first not an enemy in Magneto; it was those little quirks of what was on the page was also on the screen.  Rather than being merely a team-up purely for the sake of stopping a common foe; Marvel was about characterization first and action second, as both came at equal denominations.

Joe Quesada who became Chief Executive Officer, was given Marvel Knights with a basement bin of characters to work with, along with creative team of Jimmy Palmiotti, Gareth Ennis, Michael Bendis, Steve Dillon, David W. Mack, and Kevin Smith, they turned around public interest back into the comics and turned a profit with DareDevil, Punisher, Black Panther, Inhumans, and later Spiderman. In 2000, Quesada launched the Ultimates, which was considered some of the best story telling in recent years by re-tooling marvels most successful and recognizable brands and re-introducing them to a brand new audience and in a different way.



In becoming an establish film company, Marvel films had to build a strong basement foundation with success of Blade, to generate funding and investment buyers, towards its first steps for a universe, these baby steps came in the form like Dare-Devil and Elektra, which had Disney considering buying the company at the time but opted out at the last minute; Not to lose sight of their goals Marvel began receiving some income from the royalty rights from  Sony's Spiderman, Fox's X-Men & Fantastic Four and Universal's Incredible Hulk. Avi Arad was able to secure investments from banks to have Marvel Films independently create their own films going forward ( 8 films in 10 years), after the success of the first Iron Man they secured a 6 picture deal  exclusively with Paramount to distribute their films. Kevin Feige who came up through USC and was learning the business under Richard Donner and his Wife,  Was there being part of the creative team back in 2000,  with the first X-Men movie, Working his was up to becoming a producer on  all 5 movies in phase one. These 5 films had huge opening weekends landing at Number one at the box office ranging from 55 Million to 128 Million for its opening day weekend in sales. With its highest grossing film at that point was Iron Man 2, making over 600 Million dollars worldwide. Feige has mentioned on record that it wasn't until the Monday after the results of Iron Man 1's opening weekend receipt was tallied did they green light working on Iron man 2  and started planning out the Avengers.

This month of May mark's the 8 year anniversary of the North American Debut of Avengers in Theatres, it was the last stop of the films debut release, which ended up being a blessing in disguised.  The Actors, producers, and director Joss Whedon had gone on tour all over the world at premiere's in countries all over Europe, UK, Australia, and China, before debuting finally on May 4th.  And it was a discussion between Kevin Feige, Feige's Assistant Jonathan Schwartz (now Exec Producer on Captain Marvel), Joss Whedon and editor Jeffrey Ford to go out and shoot the post credit Shawarma scene while the entire cast were gathered together for the press junkets.  The sudden idea to film Shawarma seemed absurd to Whedon, but in hindsight makes the most sense as it was a family, who should not be in the same room together but are. The inspiration would be drawn from Whedon's personal experience, while on the Set of Angel with actors Amy Acker and Alexis Denisof (who played 'The Other') after an emotional grueling shoot of  Acker's character of Fred making her final appearance. Whedon recalls just sitting having dinner at a diner just exhausted with his fellow actors. And thus the template for the post credit scene.  It was a blessing for North American Audiences because they had only hours to edit that scene into the post credits before the final print was  distributed to theatres across North America, as the world premieres would only have had the mid post credit scene to view.

The film paid dividends by surpassing everyone's expectations, Whedon understood where motivations lied for each character; as every character shined with not a single character taking a back seat, as it was presented as an ensemble piece.  The comedic dialogue, witty banter was perfectly placed, the action went full out as characters worked with each other in spectacular ways after working against each other at the start. The progression and a developing story arc was fully fleshed out. The result of which was good word of mouth from the audience and multiple re-visits, when a trend such as binge watching was becoming a new phenomena.
Avengers made on its opening day weekend 207 Million dollars at the box office.  To put this in defining context Dark Knight Rises took in just about 185 Million Dollars as it debuted the same year, The Dark Knight had made 158 Million on its opening weekend. Avengers was the first superhero movie to cross the 1 Billion dollar mark,  It took time for both Dark knight and Dark Knight Rises to reach 1 Billion but they still fall marginally short to Avengers to this day.
Disney had bought out Paramount's film distribution rights for 4 Billion dollars  and made their imprint going forward with Winter Soldier and beyond; as the last film in Phase one would be Iron Man 3, followed by Thor: Dark World which was on the slate for an upcoming release. Whedon  would continue to stay on, working on the next Avengers installment, the Age of Ultron and was creator and part of the writing team for Marvel's Agents of Shield.  Coincidently, a series that will see its concluding run beginning at the last week of this May and concludes at the end of summer.