What Avengers: Infinity War's success owes to TV

Marvel's cinematic universe has formed the perfect response to a market littered with sequels, reboots, and remakes

It goes without saying these days: sequels, remakes, and reboots are Hollywood’s new norm. In 2018 alone, approximately 50 of such beasts have either already been released into the world, or will soon take the opportunity to pounce.

From Mission: Impossible - Fallout to The Predator, Sicario 2: Day of the Soldado to Luca Guadagnino’s remake of Suspiria - it’s not just a blockbuster fixation. But from all this arises one consideration: if the idea of revisiting existing properties is an attempt to lure audience-goers with the temptation of the familiar, what happens when everything’s familiar?

Where does the advantage lie now? How can studios stand out from the competition when nostalgia is being launched into our eyes from all sides?

Enter the cinematic universe. The sequel’s step up. A structure which, in its most insincere considerations, seems built entirely as a long-term attendance guarantee. It’s not exactly a new invention but, then again, there’s never been a payoff quite as satisfying as than the release of Avengers: Infinity War.

A culmination of ten years of the MCU, already passing the $1 billion mark worldwide in a record 11 days, while neatly shaping up to be Marvel Studios’ biggest hit yet.

A marvel in itself when you consider it’s a film that relies so intensely on audiences already having an in-built knowledge of what’s come before: old characters resurface without a glimmer of reintroduction, plot strands descend from the heavens without any impulse for context.

All of a sudden, 18 preceding Marvel films can officially be sold as mandatory viewing. It’s a feat almost Machiavellian in its underworkings: the creation of a grand, inter-film narrative that’s slowly been advanced by each individual Marvel release. Miss one? You’re already behind.

The approach forms a compelling security blanket, of sorts, when it comes to the studios’ riskier, less flashy output. What could have been hard sells with the likes of Ant-Man and Doctor Strange - lesser known heroes with mildly confusing powers - became more surefire installments in an ever-growing empire, attached with the knowledge these characters would soon integrate themselves within our beloved Avengers.

Though both films are amongst the lowest-performing of the MCU, Doctor Strange’s $233 million and Ant-Man’s $180 million domestic grosses both put them far out of the conversation of flops or disappointments.

It’s proven to be a more tantalising hook than 3D could ever offer, certainly, and though the failure of DC's current cinematic universe to really stick with audiences has many a cause, it’s notable that it seems so much to lack any sense of a grand plan.

Of course, cinema isn’t only in self-competition these days. While Netflix unhinges its jaw to consume every creative project in its path, cinema has also had to reckon with television’s rocketing prestige.

A feverish conversation battles over whether the art of television has truly surpassed that of cinema, or whether the two were ever comparable in the first place. The answer, however, matters little. That opinion being voiced in the first place is enough for studios to take pause and, even if it’s been heard before, the dissemination of the internet can turn even a whimper into a roar.

The irony here is that television’s new burst of prestige is partially due to the format speaking in an increasingly cinematic language: there’s the attraction to auteur output (David Fincher’s Mindhunter, Steven Soderbergh’s The Knick, and Paul Sorrentino’s The Young Pope come to mind), the inflating budgets, the flirtation with feature-length episodes, as seen with the likes of Westworld and Game of Thrones.

Some shows have attempted to close the gap entirely and simply screen select episodes in cinemas: Marvel’s Inhumans, for example, showed its first two episodes in IMAX cinemas two weeks before they ever debuted on TV.

Arguably, cinema’s responded in turn. Television is able to secure consistent viewership through long-form storytelling, allowing characters to grow and breathe, while creating deeply embedded relationships with the audience.

Those same things could arguably be said about the MCU and its ability to guarantee a base viewership by littering a narrative arch amongst so many puzzle piece films. A way to streamline the scattershot, expansive world of its comic book origins to create a single, forward momentum and a foreseeable sense of closure - even if Marvel's next phase ends up kicking things off anew.

Which is what makes Avengers: Infinity War such the statement point that it is: it’s essentially part one of the MCU’s season (or should that be series?) finale.

All we need to wonder now is just how much bigger that blowout will be with Avengers 4.