Two-time Academy Award winner Ben Affleck is no stranger to superhero cinema. The foul-mouthed Falmouthian graduated from Kevin Smith's View Askewniverse, itself deeply steeped in the culture of comics, to play the first live-action incarnation of attorney-turned-vigilante Matt Murdock in the 2003 movie Daredevil before going on to become the latest in a long line of actors to portray the Caped Crusader on the big-screen in the DC Extended Universe installments Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Justice League, and, briefly, Suicide Squad.
Spider-Man is one of Marvel Comics' most enduring heroes, first appearing in Amazing Fantasy #15 before going on to star in more than 800 issues of his own solo series across five volumes and almost six decades, the longest continuous tenure in the history of the company. Add to that the nearly one thousand issues of his Spectacular, Astonishing, Sensational, and Unlimited variations, and it's indisputable that Spider-Man is the most beloved resident of the House of Ideas.
Of the four Avengers whose solo films made up the first phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, all have set foot on planets other than Earth, but of them all, Steve Rogers, referred to in his own origin story as The First Avenger, was the last. After boarding the Benatar in the opening act of the Russo Brothers' 2019 record-breaking Avengers: Endgame with a crew made up of about half-a-dozen survivors of Thanos' cataclysmic decimation three weeks prior, Captain America left Earth's atmosphere for the first time in his life.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is the first of fully-integrated television projects connected to the Marvel Cinematic Universe set to premiere on the Disney+ streaming service, continuing the story of Air Force pararescue airman Sam Wilson and World War II Army officer turned HYDRA assassin James Buchanan Barnes in the aftermath of Avengers: Endgame, which concluded with an elderly Steve Rogers turning over the shield and mantle of Captain America to Wilson.
Death has never been a particularly difficult obstacle to overcome in the Star Wars franchise. Just ask Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi Master Yoda, Peter Cushing, Anakin Skywalker, Sheev Palpatine, Leia Organa, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo or the self-styled Rey Skywalker, who have each returned from their fictional and even literal graves when the story demanded.
For the last decade, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been an intensely continuity-conscious franchise (with only the occasional arithmetic miscalculation), and so when filaments of plot are left swaying in the narrative breeze, viewers have come to expect resolution. While some of us are still waiting to learn what happened to Samuel Sterns after he became infected with Bruce Banner's irradiated blood, another more recent example involves a certain God of Thunder and his potential involvement with a ragtag band of intergalactic outlaws.
The Walt Disney Company has recently hit something of a stride when it comes to the subtle art of repurposing its own animated catalogue in live-action movies (though some of their projects stretch the meaning of the phrase "live-action") marketed toward the now-adult audiences who fell in love with those original films. In between modest performers like last year's Dumbo and the-year-before's Christopher Robin, the studio has released bona-fide blockbuster remakes of Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King.
The streaming sector may be growing ever more crowded as increasing numbers of providers embrace the video-on-demand model of content distribution, but industry pioneer Netflix continues to dominate in terms of original content and more than double the subscribers of its nearest competitor, Disney+. And in March of 2020, those 62 million subscribers have a lot of compelling movies and series to look forward to, both original and imported.
