Tales From The Box Office: Iron Man Was The Unlikely Superhero That Changed Hollywood Forever

( Welcome to Tales from the Box Office , our column that examines box office miracles, disasters, and everything in between, as well as what we can learn from them. )

If one were to write a book about a handful of movies that defined Hollywood, it would be very difficult to imagine writing that book without including 2008's "Iron Man." While the superhero movie boom certainly began several years earlier with the likes of "X-Men" and "Spider-Man," not to mention "Batman Begins," it was director Jon Favreau's take on Tony Stark that completely reshaped the way people in the movie business think about filmmaking in general. Forget sequels — cinematic universes are the way of the future!

Yet, the Marvel Cinematic Universe as we know it was merely an idea in the summer of '08 when this movie arrived, with the potential to connect the various films in development at Marvel Studios at the time down the line. Yes, Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige had a rough plan , but that plan was by no means fully formed when this film was coming together. Truthfully, it was hard enough to get this movie made, and it's a miracle it turned out as well as it did. But wildly unexpected success and record-breaking box office gave way to much, much more in the years that followed. And it all starts with Robert Downey Jr. and those now-iconic words: "I am Iron Man."

In this article, we're looking back at the seminal movie, how it came to be Marvel's first in-house production, the sheer number of things that seemed to be working against it ahead of the release, what happened when it finally hit theaters, and what lessons we can learn from it all these years later. Let's dig in, shall we?

(Marvel Studios)

Over 15 years and nearly $29 billion at the global box office later, it is impossible to argue against the strength of "Iron Man" as a piece of popular cinema. It gave Marvel the confidence to proceed with this grand plan of connecting a bunch of disparate franchises and heroes together, leading to "The Avengers" in 2012, which was truly the point of no return. In the years that followed, other studios would try desperately to replicate that template for success in a rushed, haphazard fashion. Zack Snyder's DC Extended Universe, the Dark Universe. There were casualties along the way.

The biggest lesson is that yes, Marvel Studios knew where this could go – but they never put the cart before the horse. They made "Iron Man" the best movie it could be, and took some really worthwhile creative risks in getting to that place. It all started, not just with a good movie, but a great movie. A movie with no winks or nods to a larger universe until Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury shows up in a credits scene . It's a movie with an identity on its own terms, first and foremost. Relatively few people cared about Tony Stark before 2008, but this movie made people care. That's a pretty remarkable thing.

More than anything, it's worth remembering that these early MCU films didn't succeed by being Easter egg hunts or only teeing up the ball for bigger things to come. They were individual movies with a true identity that audiences could enjoy as an individual experience. It feels like the MCU is losing sight of that a bit, and it feels like almost nobody else in Hollywood has understood that at all in trying to replicate this formula. Making a good movie is nothing shy of a minor miracle, but a universe is built one good movie at a time. Period. And "Iron Man" was a very good movie.

If you're looking for the easiest way to keep up with all the major movie and TV news, why not sign up to our free newsletter ? You can also add us as a preferred search source on Google.

Read the original article on SlashFilm .

(Marvel Studios)

Entertainment: