For me 2008 was particularly gratifying as a Marvel fan because it was a year that some luster was restored to the brand; after a run of both critical and box-office successes with the first two Spider-man movies and X-Men 2, Marvel's film properties suffered a visible drop in quality, with the Fantastic Four movies being average at best, the Ghost Rider film turning out to be unspeakably awful, and the third installments of both the Spider-man and X-men franchises proving to be huge disappointments to many fans.
The summer of 2008 changed that when Iron Man surprised everyone by coming in second only to The Dark Knight in terms of United States grosses and garnering stellar reviews almost across the board, at least if rottentomatoes.com and metacritic are to be believed. The Incredible Hulk may not have scaled similar heights, but considering that it was working against a lot of factors, chief of which was the very poor reception of its predecessor, Ang Lee's 2003 debacle Hulk (which I actually liked), it was actually quite an achievement; it opened well, showed visibly better legs than the Lee film, and left a lot of fanboys cheering. And best of all, both movies, the latter even more than the former, offered somewhat tantalizing teases of the unified Marvel Universe to come, something no other comic book film, Marvel, DC or otherwise, could claim.
Of course, the best part about both these movies was that they were not made by a studio, whether Sony, Fox or Universal; they were made by Marvel itself, with studios such as Paramount and Universal only handling the distribution duties. Marvel showed that with the right amount of money, talent and love for the material, there was so much they could do. Sony Pictures, the studio responsible for Spider-Man, perked up and took notice; they pushed the release date on the inevitable fourth installment back a full year to allow for more development time.
Unfortunately, however, the quality of those two films appears to have had no impact on how Twentieth Century Fox handles its Marvel movies, at least if X-Men Origins: Wolverine is any indication.
To be fair, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, was probably well into production at the time both Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk came out, so its quality, or lack thereof, may well have been set in stone in some respects, but the chasm in quality between the Fox film and that made by Marvel themselves is so wide one wonders if Fox will ever catch up, though they're reputedly fixing to retool the Fantastic Four franchise along the lines of Iron Man. If they hire ILM to do the effects instead of some two-penny, half-penny outfit I'll be inclined to believe them.
The way Fox makes Marvel movies is a lot like the way Mattel/Hot Wheels makes 1/18 Ferrari model cars. Both companies are fond of cutting corners and are often so intent on getting more for less than their products are visibly slipshod, especially when compared to the slicker products of their rivals. Just as Mattel has a stranglehold on the Ferrari license, unfortunately so does Fox seem to have an interminable contract with Marvel over properties like Daredevil, Fantastic Four, and, of course the X-Men. So for years to come we can look forward to cheap excuses for Ferrari models and crappy Marvel/Fox movies. The thing is, like a toy modeled after a Ferrari, a movie made based on a Marvel Comics property has the potential to be so much more.
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