Everyone else is just playing Marvel's  game at this point.


I have no doubt some of the DC/Warner movies will be good, and some will likely be bad, and there will be people who prefer them because there is a strong chance they are going to be radically different in tone than anything Marvel's making, and fandom will continue to rage and debate even as Fox struggles to manage their own unconnected corner of the Marvel Universe. But make no mistake… Marvel is driving the entire conversation right now. Everyone else is reacting to them, or being forced to try to emulate them, or making a conscious decision not to react to them, which is still a reaction, and through it all, Marvel is making the choices they're making based on a long-range story-driven game plan that takes business considerations into account but that also seems designed to ever keep anyone from being in the position of being able to ruin their plans over money.


Over the weekend, Devin Faraci ran a piece about the possible shape of "Avengers 3" over at Badass Digest, and like Devin, there are things I've been hearing for a while now that have me wondering what the Marvel Universe looks like in five years. It won't be the Marvel Universe we know right now, but it will be richer and weirder and much much larger. I think many fans assumed that we'd get to the James Bond moment at some point soon where they have to just start recasting the key roles like Tony Stark or Captain America or Thor, but I think Marvel is reluctant to start down that road.


Instead, it seems like they're focused on cultivating new members of the Marvel family while figuring out the best way to deploy those contractual obligations they've still got pending. It's like an elaborate narrative chess game, and the advantage Marvel has is that they know where all these things are heading. They have long-range plans for the world that have been building now for ten movies and that are nowhere near their final pay-off yet. That's sort of remarkable and unprecedented. That's what I mean when I say everyone else is going to have to play Marvel's game. They've got to start thinking bigger.


There's a fairly pronounced antagonism between Fox and Marvel these days, and it's just going to get stranger as the publishing version of Marvel seems to be making some very strategic decisions about the characters that Fox owns. Deadpool's  movie may have finally been announced, but it looks like Marvel's planning to kill Deadpool in the very near future. The rumors about the end of publication for "Fantastic Four"  were denied for months, but now look to be true. And the status quo in the world of the "X-Men" " is in ruins in a way that looks nothing like the movies currently being made. Whatever Marvel's future is, the Fox deal remains a thorn in their side, a sequester of some of their biggest characters that looks unlikely to ever change.


Sony, on the other hand, may be doing things the opposite way. While I can't get the confirmations I need to verify the story, I'm hearing that there are some very cool "Spider-Man" plans being discussed that would help Sony refocus their enormously important franchise while also opening up some connections in the onscreen Marvel movie universe that would blow fandom's minds. Will it work out? I don't know. I would love to be able to state for sure that it's happening. What seems clear from what I've heard is that Marvel wants to be able to play with all of their characters, and if they can make that work creatively and on a corporate level, they will, and that means the world gets bigger again.


Someone asked me this weekend when this bubble bursts, and for Marvel, I don't see anything that can stop them at this point besides them. For almost two years, I had conversations with people in which I talked about how important "Guardians Of The Galaxy"  would be to the studio, and I was told endlessly that it was going to be the point where they bit off more than they could chew. Now that the film is a legitimate phenomenon, it looks like Marvel really can successfully introduce new and unknown characters to the mainstream and they can take chances with tone or with casting as long as they deliver something that works. They have two more giant challenges coming with "Doctor Strange" and "Ant-Man," but they've got all of their energy focused on making those movies not only fit into what's come before, but expand what can come afterwards."