The Trend: Having multiple franchises exist in a shared cinematic universe. From the moment that Samuel L Jackson's Nick Fury popped up at the end of Iron Man and mentioned the 'Avengers Initiative', fans around the world rejoiced. After two Iron Man movies, and the cinematic introductions of Thor and Captain America, this groundbreaking cinematic world-building culminated in The Avengers, which smashed box office records around the globe on its way to becoming the third-biggest movie in history. Of course, other studios took notice of this practice and decided to jump on the bandwagon. DC are trying to play catch-up in the superhero stakes after the end of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy and poor response to Green Lantern, but it still came as a surprise when it was announced that Zack Snyder's follow-up to Man of Steel would not only introduce a new cinematic iteration of Batman, but the big-screen debut of Wonder Woman as well. Over at Fox, X-Men: Days of Future Past unites the casts of both the original trilogy and First Class to create a unifying X-Men cinematic universe after 14 years and 7 movies, with Simon Kinberg on board to integrate the rebooted Fantastic Four into the mix as well. Even the Spider-Man universe will be rapidly expanding on-screen, with Columbia hiring a 'brain trust' that includes Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Ed Solomon and Drew Goddard to create spin-off movies that focus on Venom and The Sinister Six, as well as the already-announced Amazing Spider-Man 3 and 4. Given the continuing popularity of the superhero movie and the huge success of Marvel's Phase 1, it was only a matter of time before other studios starting following suit. It seems as though DC are rushing their universe together by cramming Batman and Wonder Woman into Snyder's movie, with rumors indicating that Justice League is up next. It remains to be seen how well these shared universes will fare, but Marvel will always be the ones to beat. The Avengers was in development as far back as 2006, with Kevin Feige indicating he has the slate of upcoming releases planned out until 2021. With Phase 2 already well under way, and Avengers: Age of Ultron set for release next year, the Marvel Cinematic Universe will show the pretenders how its done.
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