The Avengers was the sixth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and was the end result of five years of careful planning and coordinating. Marvel took the various characters they introduced in Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger, and then brought them all together in an epic team up film.
It was a risky move, and one that'd never tried before. If even one of the previous films had flopped at the box office, the whole project might have collapsed and we'd never have gotten The Avengers.
Fortunately that didn't happen, as the movie was a massive hit, grossing over $1.5 BILLION worldwide. It was the first (but definitely not the last!) MCU movie to pass the billion dollar mark!
As a kid, my favorite thing about Marvel Comics was the way the characters teamed up and appeared in each other's books, as if they all lived in the same world. The Avengers effortlessly utilized this shared universe concept, and I was blown away to see it recreated on the big screen.
Unfortunately Disney doesn't know when to stop, as the MCU should have ended with the one-two punch of Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. Instead, they insist on milking the franchise by trotting out Z-level characters that even hard core comic fans would have trouble identifying. But that's a story for another time.
Happy 10th! Avengers Assemble!
