In popular news this week, the newest expansion to the Marvel Universe, Agent Carter (2015), premiered it's final episode of its first season on ABC!
This new series has been met with overall positive reviews, scoring a 97% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and acheiving with an average rating of 7.9/10.
First premiering on January 6th this year, the spinoff follows the character of Peggy (Hayley Atwell), exploring her life as a spy in 1940's America, where she balances her administrative work and ongoing secret missions, but whilst also dealing with the grief of losing her boyfriend, Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans). The character first appeared in Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), but the series was inspired by her role in Marvel One-Shot: Agent Carter (2013), a short drama featured on the Iron Man 3 DVD (2013). This short clip was met with much interest and approval from Marvel fans, and so it was agreed to expand her story in a new adaptation series, sharing the continuity with other characters within the franchise. Here's a preview of the clip:
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With Agent Carter, Marvel now has two series on air, as it joins Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D (2013), the first live-action franchise spinoff directed by Joss Whedon. It's worth mentioning that when Whedon's series premiered on ABC in September nearly 2 years ago, it achieved the highest ratings for a US drama debut in over four years, becoming a great success for Marvel! Now, Agent Carter appears to be following it its footsteps thanks to high ratings, whilst also serving as "a bridge between season between season beaks in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, with their storylines eventually intertwined" (Beaumont-Thomas, 2014).
If that wasn't enough, it's also been revealed that Marvel has a new partnership with the online-streaming website, Netflix, to create even more spin-offs for the franchise. Beginning with Daredevil (2015), Netflix will add four 13-episode series to the network, with characters including Iron First, Jessica Jones and Luke cage. Marvel has explained that the reason behind this is so that fans can enjoy the shows "how and when they want", with the new series expanding "the narrative possibilities of on-demand television" (as cited in BBC News, 2013). So, this is definitely good news for Marvel fans as they appear to have unlimited shows at their disposal!
But this leads me to question... Why? Why is Marvel exploiting their IPs so much, and what effect is this having on the Industry?
It's obvious that money doesn't seem to be a driving force here, as the franchise is notoriously financially successful, generating millions of dollars from each of its films alone (see my second post for evidence). Nonetheless, it's worth mentioning that the existence of a well-developed world can introduce the possibility for merchandise and more branding, in the form of new toys, novels, games and more. These well-developed worlds "invite fans to collect and find tokens of their beloved world" (Smith, 2009) and in turn, generates more and more money for the franchise. If we look at the Star Wars franchise for an example, its estimated to have accumulated over 9 billion dollars from it's merchandise alone!
But it although these figures are astonishing, it's most probable that Marvel are creating so many spinoffs as a strategy to create transmedia narratives. In other words, these new series create a backdrop of narrative timelines and in turn, they create endless narrative possibilities and opportunities for new adventures across their ficitonal Universe. This is evident with Marvel's phrase, #itsallconnected, often used on social media. White also adds "That's the phase Marvel uses... to remind viewers that everything they're doing, the films and the network TV shows, all play off each other!" (White, 2014), and so this diverse transmedia storytelling opens up fantastic new worlds for effective play.
In this sense, transmedia narratives are important to create stories within for the Marvel Universe, not of the characters. So, although these series and films are based around names such as Agent Carter, Iron Man and Captain America, it's the world in which they inhabit that has the true character. Scholar Geoffrey Long explains this further:
This is certainly a strategy for Marvel, as they revealed in a statement when discussing the Netflix spinoff shows, "The epic will unfold over multiple years of original programming, taking Netflix members deep into the gritty world of heroes and villains of Hell's Kitchen, New York" (as cited in The Guardian, 2014). Furthermore, Marvel's studio president, Kevin Feige, is said to have a master plan that actually continues up to 2028, as they have the option of 8,000 comic book copyright characters to choose from. This revelation comes from Business Week, who landed a conversation with Bob Iger, Disney's CEO:
Refrences and Bibliography:
Agent Carter Poster Agent Carter Gif
Agent Coulson Gif
Star Wars Dance Gif
Marvel Poster
Avengers Mean Girls Gif
If that wasn't enough, it's also been revealed that Marvel has a new partnership with the online-streaming website, Netflix, to create even more spin-offs for the franchise. Beginning with Daredevil (2015), Netflix will add four 13-episode series to the network, with characters including Iron First, Jessica Jones and Luke cage. Marvel has explained that the reason behind this is so that fans can enjoy the shows "how and when they want", with the new series expanding "the narrative possibilities of on-demand television" (as cited in BBC News, 2013). So, this is definitely good news for Marvel fans as they appear to have unlimited shows at their disposal!
But this leads me to question... Why? Why is Marvel exploiting their IPs so much, and what effect is this having on the Industry?
It's obvious that money doesn't seem to be a driving force here, as the franchise is notoriously financially successful, generating millions of dollars from each of its films alone (see my second post for evidence). Nonetheless, it's worth mentioning that the existence of a well-developed world can introduce the possibility for merchandise and more branding, in the form of new toys, novels, games and more. These well-developed worlds "invite fans to collect and find tokens of their beloved world" (Smith, 2009) and in turn, generates more and more money for the franchise. If we look at the Star Wars franchise for an example, its estimated to have accumulated over 9 billion dollars from it's merchandise alone!
But it although these figures are astonishing, it's most probable that Marvel are creating so many spinoffs as a strategy to create transmedia narratives. In other words, these new series create a backdrop of narrative timelines and in turn, they create endless narrative possibilities and opportunities for new adventures across their ficitonal Universe. This is evident with Marvel's phrase, #itsallconnected, often used on social media. White also adds "That's the phase Marvel uses... to remind viewers that everything they're doing, the films and the network TV shows, all play off each other!" (White, 2014), and so this diverse transmedia storytelling opens up fantastic new worlds for effective play.
In this sense, transmedia narratives are important to create stories within for the Marvel Universe, not of the characters. So, although these series and films are based around names such as Agent Carter, Iron Man and Captain America, it's the world in which they inhabit that has the true character. Scholar Geoffrey Long explains this further:
"When developing a narrative that's meant to extend across multiple media forms, the world must be considered a primary character of its own, because many transmedia narratives aren't the story of one character at all, but the story of the world. Special attention must be paid to developing a stage upon which multiple storylines (often in different media types) can unfurl, and ever story must maintain the consistency of that world" (Long, as cited in Smith, 2009)With this in mind, its obvious that this expansive hyperdiagetic world gives Marvel the ability to extend the Universe in any way they like, meaning that it can continue to exist for many years to come. In this way, many of their IP characters can die out, grow old or disappear, making way for fresh new narratives, giving them the ability to continue to exploit as many properties for as long as they want.
This is certainly a strategy for Marvel, as they revealed in a statement when discussing the Netflix spinoff shows, "The epic will unfold over multiple years of original programming, taking Netflix members deep into the gritty world of heroes and villains of Hell's Kitchen, New York" (as cited in The Guardian, 2014). Furthermore, Marvel's studio president, Kevin Feige, is said to have a master plan that actually continues up to 2028, as they have the option of 8,000 comic book copyright characters to choose from. This revelation comes from Business Week, who landed a conversation with Bob Iger, Disney's CEO:
"Much of Marvel's success can be attributed to Kevin Feige. He has a special understanding of comics, fans, superheroes, and narrative. He concedes that Marvel won't recover the film rights to Spider-Man or the X-Men anytime soon but says Marvel has something more valuable: a universe of thousands of characters it controls entirely. That means Kevin Feige can produce an unlimited number of films with interweaving story lines and characters, creating a vast audience for almost any Marvel movie.... There's a map of films reaching far into the next decade on the wall of Kevin Feige's office."So with this in mind, Marvel's spinoffs are definitely part of a strategy to continue the franchise into the far future, which will continually shift depending on the demand for a character. It appears that their extensive list of IPs is definitely something to be envious about, as with over 8,000 copyrighted characters, they have a bank of properties to last more than a lifetime! So, Marvel has endless options for the future of their IPs.
(Obligatory image showing the succes of the Marvel Universe)
Refrences and Bibliography:
'Agent Carter'. ABC, 2015. TV programme.
'Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D'. ABC, 2013. TV programme.
BBC News,. 'Marvel TV Shows To Debut On Netflix'. N.p., 2013. Web. 24 Jan. 2015.
Beaumont-Thomas, Ben. 'Marvel Announce Captain America Spin-Off TV Show Agent Carter'. the Guardian. N.p., 2014. Web. 24 Feb. 2015.
Captain America: The First Avenger. Joe Johnston, 2011. film.
Facebook.com,. '#Itsallconnected | Facebook'. N.p., 2015. Web. 25 Feb. 2015.
Hills, Matt. Fan Cultures. London: Routledge, 2002. Print.
Iron Man 3. Shane Black, 2013. DVD.
Leonard, Devin. 'The Pow! Bang! Bam! Plan To Save Marvel, Starring B-List Heroes'.Businessweek.com. N.p., 2014. Web. 25 Feb. 2015.
Marvel One-Shot: Agent Carter. Louis D’Esposito, 2013. film.
Marvel One-Shot: Agent Carter Clip. http://marvel.com/videos/watch/2814: Louis D’Esposito, 2013. video.
Netflix.com,. 'Netflix - Watch TV Shows Online, Watch Movies Online'. N.p., 2015. Web. 24 Feb. 2015.
Rottentomatoes.com,. 'Marvel's Agent Carter: Season 1'. N.p., 2015. Web. 25 Feb. 2015.
Smith, Aaron. 'Transmedia Storytelling In Television 2.0 » The Art Of Worldbuilding'.Sites.middlebury.edu. N.p., 2009. Web. 25 Feb. 2015.
The Guardian,. 'Marvel Announce Captain America Spin-Off TV Show Agent Carter'. N.p., 2014. Web. 6 Jan. 2015.
White, Brett. 'Working Agent Coulson Into The Marvel Netflix-Verse - Spinoff Online - TV, Film, And Entertainment News Daily'. Spinoff Online - TV, Film, and Entertainment News Daily. N.p., 2014. Web. 25 Jan. 2015.
Images and Gifs:Agent Carter Poster Agent Carter Gif
Agent Coulson Gif
Star Wars Dance Gif
Marvel Poster
Avengers Mean Girls Gif
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