It's All About The Benjamins: My Less Than Nerdy Feelings On XMen

Here goes my nerd street cred, right out the proverbial window.

Having now seen "Thor" twice, I figured I may as well venture out and see more Marvel creations:
So I've just returned home from "X Men: First Class". And while you might think I'm about to go on and on about story lines or maintaining the integrity of well-loved comic characters, I'm actually more interested in the business side of things.

In the past, comic movies were sort of a joke. A big joke. Not so much "comic-y" as just goofy, inane, and harmlessly juvenile - these big screen adaptations were (honestly) a poor representation of a maligned media. The upper echelon has loved to hate comics (graphic novels and whatnot) since their inception. A sad fact as comics have often tackled some very serious social issues, often in very dark, very intense, very adult ways. Luckily, for us nerdy children, comics have finally broken into a more respected position and subsequently found their way into more serious, respected film genre.

Despite these leaps, many opportunities still remained on the table. Until Marvel got smart and started leveraging the sheer powerhouse they were seated on; the famed "Marvel Universe".

Let's pause here and talk about the American film industry and its bottom lines. Love it or hate it, the movie industry exists to turn a profit. A by-product of that is that we, as audiences, get the chance to be entertained. I'm not saying that there are not passionate, talented folks out there, within the "studio system", who aren't toiling away because they love what they do. There are. There really, really are. But even those talented folks need to pay their bills.

Accepting that movies are a billion dollar industry and that everyone involved wants a piece of that, it's a wonder Marvel didn't strike sooner: with the wealth of material they have at their disposal, they have a nearly infinite potential to continue bringing in the cash.

Make one movie, make a million - make a never-ending string of inter-connected movies, well... your earning potential is unlimited.

Fucking brilliant.

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