MCU Vs DCEU: The Definitive Comparison (So Far)

These days, its becoming increasingly rare to find a comic book movie that genuinely breaks the mold and offers something audiences have never seen before. Somewhat ironically it isn't even Marvel or DC that have offered the most refreshing superhero flicks of recent years, that honor falls to the foul-mouthed meta stylings of Deadpool and the gritty, introspective Logan.

The greatest trick the MCU pulls on its audience is the ability to uniformly structure their movies in the standard 'in-house style', but pass them off as something different. Think about it; Captain America: The Winder Soldier was labeled a political thriller, Guardians of the Galaxy a space opera, Ant-Man a heist flick, Spider-Man: Homecoming a John Hughes-type teen movie to name but a few, but they all distinctly feature the same tropes and archetypes found in the rest of the studio's output.

Only Thor: Ragnarok and Black Panther really stand out among the pack as being something markedly different, and that's largely down to the directors the studio hired. Of course a Taika Waititi superhero movie turned out to be a bonkers intergalactic buddy movie, while Ryan Coogler proved to be the perfect fit for what may have been the timeliest comic book flick ever.

Zack Snyder's signature style has many detractors and perhaps wasn't the greatest fit for the DCEU, but at least the director made some bold narrative and aesthetic choices, even if he couldn't quite pull all of them off. David Ayer's natural instincts were largely neutered by studio interference, while Patty Jenkins still managed to do something different with DC's now-established 'everything is dark blue and action sequences must feature speed-ramping' approach.

With so much money at stake, all studios (not just Marvel and DC) are reluctant to break new ground when it comes to their tent-pole franchises, which is a large part of why blockbuster filmmaking has become so stagnant these days. There's only so long they can keep making the same movie over and over again until people start to notice.