With the way Iron Man 3 ended (see my Iron Man 3 review here), the story of Tony Stark has been completed in the Marvel Universe. If a new Iron Man movie ever gets made, he will have to start a brand new journey because his road from Iron Man to Iron Man 3 was a perfect arch.

With that said, the question of where the Marvel Universe goes next, specifically into Phase 3, is a curiosity. With the shared world that the Marvel universe now enjoys, there can a ton of directions they can go, and never really have to lose Iron Man at all, even if he doesn’t get a fourth movie anytime soon.

With that said, I really feel Marvel is a lot like Pixar in that they give a movie to the studio and let them make it based on what is best for that movie, not really what is best for Disney or Marvel Comics for that matter. With the big twist in Iron Man 3, it is obvious that they allow their creative teams to do what is best for the movie even if comic book purists don’t like changes they make.

One big difference between Marvel and Pixar is that Pixar will bring in replacement directors to make it the best that Pixar can, while Marvel looks at their directors to bring their own focus to the movie. Thor is clearly a Kenneth Branagh movie. The Avengers is clearly a Joss Whedon movie. Iron Man 3 is first and foremost a Shane Black movie. That is a VERY good thing. It they let Ant-Man be an Edgar Wright movie overall, I will be a very happy.

Kevin Feige described Iron Man 3 in this way:

Certainly Marvel is the 800-pound gorilla in that case, but one of the reasons the movie has turned out so well — and all of the movies that we work on — is because we want the filmmakers to have a voice. So, sometimes there’s friction, but we want that. We don’t want to hire a filmmaker, frankly, that does everything we tell them to do. We want someone who can bring a unique vision to it, and this movie, more than anything, is a Shane Black film through and through…

You know, while I love the shared universe, I also love how Iron Man 3 required no other superheroes other than Iron Man and James Rhodes’ Iron Patriot. When you read an Iron Man comic, you don’t expect to see The Hulk rush in to help him. You shouldn’t expect that from the movies either, and I think Marvel is training us to feel that way.

There will be shared movies, such as when Black Widow returns for Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but I don’t expect anyone to show up in Thor: The Dark World. That makes the times they do team up special, and I think with the unique directors they are hiring to helm their movies, they will all feel special and unique, while never letting you really forget there are other characters in the universe. This will give Marvel movies a long life.

Kevin Feige said it best:

“I’d like to think as we make more movies and they become more successful, there are less and less people that have never seen any of the other ones. That allows us [some leeway]; we’ve established our own continuity within the movies. But it’s really all about what’s best for the movie, one at a time. Then, also, an overarching plan that can bob and weave. But it’s always making sure that we’re paying the closest attention to the single movie at hand.”

As always, Make Mine Marvel.

Source: Screen Rant