10 Things We Learned About Cinema In 2017

3. Marvel Studios Still Reigns Supreme

At this point, there really seems to be no stopping Marvel Studios.

Once again, seemingly everything Kevin Feige and company touched turned to gold in 2017 thanks to the rule of three. They gave us the third big-screen Spider-Man in a decade and audiences lapped it up, the studio's three releases are all in the top eight highest-grossing movies of the year, they turned the third entry in the mediocre Thor franchise into a full-blown comedy and delivered one of their best-ever movies in the process.

And to top it all off the the trailer for the third Avengers became the most-viewed trailer ever on YouTube after racking up 230 million views in 24 hours.

Although Marvel comes in for criticism for frequently adhering too closely the franchise's established storytelling formula and a failure to address the glaring villain problem in almost all of their movies, Kevin Feige has managed to strike a balance between his overarching vision for the MCU and the sensibilities of his directors, with James Gunn and Taika Waititi afforded particular freedom.

This merging of the corporately-designed enterprise that is the MCU with a creative team that has planned exactly where the franchise is headed, mixed in with the right choice of filmmaker that has the ability to compromise without being overruled, has created a recipe for commercially successful crowd-pleasers that have sent Marvel Studios to the very top of the blockbuster pile.