On the face of it the positives of the shared universe franchise model that is currently being ushered in by Hollywood are pretty obvious. More movies can be released as part of the same franchise more frequntly, which naturally means those end of year accounts will be extra shiny. But there's a secondary effect that subconsciously turns movies people would have previously passed on into essential watches. Thor: The Dark World was a fun slice of blockbuster entertainment, but a cut below what the rest of the MCU has been offering recently. And in terms of overarching narrative progression it was rather slight. Yet thanks to being a part of the mega-franchise at all it was a must see for people who'd previously just been fans of Iron Man. Again, Thor isn't bad, but with countless studios (Legendary are doing monsters, Universal are doing horror icons) building their universes, shrugging off a big release will mean ignoring blockbusters for the next few years entirely. Look at DC, who with their recently announced ten upcoming films are playing the same trick before there's any real sense of audience investment; we only know what's coming all the way to 2021 just to make sure we don't think something like The Flash is inessential.
