If ever there were three letters you’d never dream of calling a superhero franchise that exists outside of Kevin Feige’s purview, then it’s “MCU.” And yet, Netflix has saw fit to fly in the face of convention, which has even more remarkably proven to have worked a treat after Ladybug & Cat Noir: The Movie debuted as one of the streaming service’s most-watched movies.
There was an element of its tongue being planted firmly in cheek when the platform’s official social media accounts designated the animated blockbuster as its very own MCU, but with an $80 million price tag and an ardent fandom desperate to see if the Miraculous saga would make a seamless transition into feature-length territory, it could have ended up backfiring spectacularly.
Thankfully, then, Ladybug & Cat Noir has been clawing its way up the rankings since arriving on Friday, with FlixPatrol revealing it to have claimed a spot on the Top 10 in 49 countries around the world, placing it third on the worldwide watch-list behind only Jackie Chan and John Cena’s risible actioner Hidden Strike and intensely atmospheric sci-fi thriller Paradise.
Of course, there are no guarantees as of yet that the MCU V2.0 will continue expanding in the same way as its live-action counterpart has been doing progressively for the last decade and a half, but seeing as Miraculous already has 130 episodes of television and countless forms of tie-in media under its belt already, it would also be foolish to say that it won’t.
Secret Invasion blew a hole in the reputation of one MCU, while the other is off to a flyer.
