Authors
Goh Si Han
Supervisors
Stephen Teo Kian Teck
Year
Abstract
Eight years since its inception, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has become the highest-grossing film franchise worldwide in the history of film. While critics have attributed the franchise’s commercial success to the rise of the comic book movie genre, the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s exceptional popularity in a market saturated with similar superhero competitors cannot be explained by genre alone. This paper argues that the franchise’s comparative advantage comes from its world-building processes constructing a complete and consistent world that assimilates genre signifiers without disturbing audiences’ conceptual immersion and that is structured for synergistic growth, ultimately leading to the diegetic world’s applications in audience engagement that ranges from the self-conscious management of audience expectations to the transmedia extension of cinematic audience engagement. Concurrently, this case study also demonstrates how world-building concepts can be integrated with an approach to film genre to derive a more effective approach to analysing contemporary blockbuster franchises as the industry shifts towards world-building practices.
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http://hdl.handle.net/10356/66682