Hey friends!

Welcome to Rox’s Picks — a weekly newsletter about business, technology, and the history behind it.

Last week’s newsletter had a 45.7% open rate. The top link you clicked on was Stephanie Hsu’s Everything Everywhere All At Once Audition. A warm welcome to the 5 people who joined since then!

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This week we’re continuing our examination of Disney, Marvel, and the entertainment industry with our guide, Matthew Ball.

Since Disney acquired Marvel in 2008 for $4 billion, both companies have done a phenomenal job of creating intellectual property (IP) through comics, building IP affinity through films, and monetizing that love through Disney’s parks. This is why Disney x Marvel combo is winning.

As Ball writes in the essay we’re examining this week:

But what’s next for the current frontrunners of the entertainment industry?

In today’s essay, Ball laid out some opinions on how Marvel Studios should approach the next phase of storytelling for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Marvel could either squander the affinity its fans feel for the franchise, or use it as leverage to catapult itself and Disney even further ahead of the competition.

Ball published this essay in 2019. Four years later, it’s time to see how Ball’s ideas measure up to history.

What’s next for Marvel & Disney after End Game?

Disney, IP, and "Returns to Marginal Affinity" by Matthew Ball

In today’s essay, Ball laid out two scenarios for Marvel after Phase 3 and End Game:

• The bear case: Marvel won't be able to replicate its success with the 22 films of The Infinity Saga (Phases 1-3 of the MCU). It won’t succeed in applying the Infinity formula to mint a new generation of unknown characters.

• The bull case: They’ll succeed anyway. With Disney’s storytelling expertise and Disney+ as a distribution platform, Marvel will continue to build affinity and leverage and successfully monetize obscure IPs, given their proven track record with previously-unknown IPs like Black Widow, Thor, and Ironman.

Let’s zero in on the bear case. Ball was skeptical of how well the Phase 4 films would perform. This is because the films would either be based on less popular Avengers like Black Widow and Dr. Strange, or they would be introducing a host of new stories and characters like the Eternals and Shang-Chi.

Let’s zoom in closer and take a look at a sleeper pick: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022).

Despite being one of my Top 5 Avengers, the good doctor isn’t exactly the most popular Marvel character. Released at the peak of Marvel Madness in 2016, Doctor Strange only grossed $677.8m. This puts it at second last amongst the Phase 3 films, just $50m ahead of Ant-man and the Wasp.

What Marvel did with the sequel, Multiverse of Madness, is worth studying. It is an experiment both on the content of Marvel’s stories moving forward and the delivery of that content.

For one, Multiverse of Madness is ambitious. The film’s trailer teases the conclusion of Wanda/Scarlet Witch’s story, a deeper exploration of Marvel’s concept of the multiverse, the introduction of a new character, and a crossover with other Marvel franchises.

But to fully appreciate Multiverse of Madness, audiences had to have seen a number of Phase 4 shows on Disney+ first:

• WandaVision introduced Wanda as the Scarlet Witch — the main antagonist in Multiverse.

• What If ... ? introduced the concept of multiverses.

• Loki taught us about variants and multiple timelines.

Unlike Phases 1 to 3 whose stories were told exclusively through theatrical releases, Multiverse is as much an experiment in distribution and delivery as it is in the craft of storytelling itself. Marvel asked…

• Will superfans who watched WandaVision love it enough to see Multiverse in theaters?

• Will casual Marvel fans who see Multiverse go back and watch the other series on Disney+?

• Will fans react just as positively in Phase 4 as in Phases 1-3, even if the stories are delivered in a different way?

.. And the market answered.

People came to see Multiverse and Wanda as Scarlet Witch. They sat to experience What If ... ?’s multiverse and Loki’s concept of variants and branching timelines.

Multiverse ended up making $955m — more than the first Dr. Strange movie. It even outsold Wakanda Forever ($859m), the Black Panther sequel also released in 2022, but with a decidedly more popular cast of characters.

Multiverse is no-where close to the most financially successful movie Marvel has ever made, but it performed an important service: it confirmed that Marvel fans were game for the next phase of the MCU, both in the story and how it would be told.

OK, OK. I’ve kept you in suspense long enough.

What is coming after End Game?

What could be more epic than a 22-film saga containing multiple callbacks, spades of fan service, and a healthy sprinkling of inside jokes for the audience, all culminating in a universal time war?

In the essay Ball writes:

Here’s how I think this will shake out in practice.

Phase 4 and beyond won’t just be about storytelling. But it will also be about how those stories get told. Phase 4 and beyond will not just be an epic web of stories set in the multiverse. Introducing the multiverse and the stories of a new generation of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes through film and television — two mediums that are often at odds with each other — is kind of a metaphor for the storyline itself. Marvel’s next phases will assemble an epic story that uses multiple mediums to develop a uniquely diverse slate of characters, who engage in a multiversal war.

In other words, they’re marrying great content with relevant distribution.

😉 You're welcome

A new segment with recommendations that will make you go, “Wow, thanks for sharing.”

• ❝ "Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Good business is the best art." — Andy Warhol, The Andy Warhol Diaries

• 📚12-Week Year for Writers by A. Trevor Thrall and Brian P. Moran. I first read this book when I did my 2022 annual review and applied about 80% of its workflow. The result? I hit and surpassed my goals for Q1. If you have a big writing goal this year or a series of smaller ones like a weekly newsletter, then check out this book.

• 🎵MMXX by Diplo. This album from EDM artist Diplo is one of my go-to’s for background music when I’m writing. Check this out if you like atmospheric work music, but don’t want to listen to a dramatic movie score.

What’s next?

If you’d like to learn more about Kevin Feige, president of Marvel Studios and the architect of the MCU, here’s a profile from the Financial Times.

Have a great weekend.

Till next week,

roxine