The Marvel Cinematic Universe Just Hit This Incredible Financial Milestone

Ever since Iron Man flew into theaters in 2008, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has grown more popular with each year. Taking the concept of the shared universe from the comics and bringing it to the big screen, it’s allowed Marvel to tell stories featuring numerous heroes separately, but also connect them varying degrees across this expansive “world.” Captain America: Civil War is the latest entry in this massive franchise, and because of its commercial success, the MCU has grossed $10 billion across the globe.

Thanks to Captain America: Civil War having another strong weekend (the second in the United States, third internationally), Deadline reports that the MCU hit the $10 billion mark. The movie grossed $84.2 million outside of the U.S., and when adding on its domestic draw, the total from across the world adds up to almost $941 million. The third Captain America installment is now the sixth highest grossing superhero movie of all time, but its performance was just the push Marvel needed to get the entire MCU to reach incredible milestone.

With the exception of 2009, the MCU has released one or more movies per year, adding up to 13 movies total. Over these eight years, we’ve met a lot of heroes, from relatively well-known folks like Iron Man and Captain America to obscure heroes like Ant-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy. While not all of these movies have enjoyed overwhelmingly positive reviews, they’ve all done well enough that the franchise hasn’t had a flop yet. The MCU’s success has also led to other studios to build their own cinematic universes, like Warner Bros with DC Comics and Paramount with Hasbro. This superhero movie genre was already popular before the MCU began, but thanks to its creation, that popularity increased immensely.

As anyone who follows comic book movie updates knows, the MCU isn’t done by a long shot. 2017 is bringing Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Spider-Man: Homecoming and Thor: Ragnarok, while Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 and Ant-Man and the Wasp follow in 2018. Phase Three will conclude in 2019 with Captain Marvel and Avengers: Infinity War Part 2, but it’s already been confirmed many times that Phase Four is being planned out (including presumably, a new spot for Inhumans and a Black Widow movie). It’s only a matter of time before that $20 billion mark is crossed, and don’t be surprised if it happens in less time than what it took to reach $10 billion.

You can watch Captain America: Civil War to your heart’s content in theaters now, and the MCU will continue (aside from the TV shows, of course) this November with Doctor Strange, this universe’s first foray into the world of magic.

Adam Holmes
Senior Content Producer

Connoisseur of Marvel, DC, Star Wars, John Wick, MonsterVerse and Doctor Who lore, Adam is a Senior Content Producer at CinemaBlend. He started working for the site back in late 2014 writing exclusively comic book movie and TV-related articles, and along with branching out into other genres, he also made the jump to editing. Along with his writing and editing duties, as well as interviewing creative talent from time to time, he also oversees the assignment of movie-related features. He graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Journalism, and he’s been sourced numerous times on Wikipedia. He's aware he looks like Harry Potter and Clark Kent.