If you actually watch and read through the end credits of Marvel Studios movies instead of just waiting through them to see coda scenes, you may have noticed that there is a group of filmmakers regularly credited as “Marvel Studios Parliament.” Some of the names may look familiar – as they have been producers on most of the company’s blockbusters and television projects – but if you’re like me, you may have also wondered about what their responsibilities are as a group behind the scenes of pop culture’s biggest franchise.
Possessing that curiosity, I recently decided to ask one of the team’s members about it when I recently covered the Los Angeles press day for the upcoming Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
Credited in alphabetical order, the roster of Marvel Studios Parliament includes Stephen Broussard, Eric Hauserman Carroll, Nate Moore, Jonathan Schwartz, Trinh Tran, and Brad Winderbaum. When I sat down with Moore late last month, the very first question I asked him was about the group and what it is. He explained,
Parliament is essentially those of us who've been with the company for longer than we want to admit who sort of help each other with ideas across all the properties, regardless of whether it's my movie or Jonathan [Schwartz]'s movie or Stephen [Broussard] 's movie. And so yeah, it's nothing more than that. We kind of came up with the name as a lark and it kind of stuck, and now I'm forced to answer questions from my friends, like, ‘What's Parliament?' I'm like, 'Oh boy.' It really is just kind of a brain trust to help elevate the movies when we can.
Nate Moore’s debut credit as part of the Marvel Studios team can be found in the “Special Thanks” section of Thor: The Dark World, but he first got named as a co-producer for Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and since then his credits have included Captain America: Civil War, Black Panther, The Falcon And The Winter Soldier Disney+ series, Eternals, and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. All of the other filmmakers in Marvel Studios Parliament have similar resumes, but their creative influences aren’t limited solely to the films that they are producing.
It’s a logical strategy for Marvel Studios to have a group like this in the organization. Between three to four movies coming out every year along with multiple television shows/limited series, there are always a great number of plates spinning, and having a team that works together and makes sure that everything is flowing and not overlapping is surely a boon to the franchise.
Within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, part of making sure that all of the gears are turning smoothly is ensuring that the exponentially growing continuity remains intact. Per Nate Moore, overseeing that aspect of the canon isn’t a primary job of Marvel Studios Parliament, but it certainly is something that they keep in mind:
I would say that's certainly not just our responsibility because we have colleagues across both the movies and the shows who aren't technically in Parliament, but who are incredibly instrumental in making sure the continuity maintains itself and that our different properties don't step on each other.
If you’re trying to keep the whole of the Marvel Cinematic Universe straight in your own mind (especially with the critically acclaimed Black Panther: Wakanda Forever on the way), we have resources that can help you out. Our Marvel Movies In Order feature is a breakdown of the MCU timeline, and our Upcoming Marvel Movies and Upcoming Marvel TV guides provide all of the information you’re looking for about the projects on the horizon. And if you’re just into checking out the best of the best that Marvel has to offer, our Marvel Movies Ranking is waiting for your perusal.
