The DC Extended Universe (DCEU), The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and Choosing your Career

by Isaiah O'Connor

    Hello, My name is Isaiah and I am an entrepreneur who is passionate about people. Out of that passion has come my balloon business as well as this blog.  I love to make people smile and laugh and enjoy life, and I also have the heart of a teacher. It makes my day when I am able to impart something to a person that makes an impact on their life. As we go on this journey I hope that what I have learned from study and experience will help you grow as an individual, and as an entrepreneur.

    In order to stay on top of my game as an entrepreneur, I try to do three things on a daily basis. I read nonfiction books, I participate in Facebook business groups and watch business related videos on YouTube.

    While doing this I have often seen some version of "How do I find the best business/career for me?" This is a vital question that we all face at some point in our lives, and how we answer it is just as important.

    When many if not most people come to this question, they tend to evaluate what their skill set is, and how they can use those skills to make the most money. These are some important points to consider, as you may want to be a highly paid professional athlete, but have no skill, or you could be a very good cook but find most chefs do not make as much money as you thought. However, there is one question, the most important question in your career decision that is vital for you to ponder.    

“What am I passionate about?” Or “What can I become passionate about?”   

For an example, when I was young I was trying to figure out what I should do with my life, I met with my local college’s "Career counselor". They had no advice for me on what I should do, but since I had told them I liked computers and was good with them they told me what courses I needed to take in what order. This was rather redundant as that information was already printed in the course catalog.

This left me feeling more lost than before and lead me to drop out without a degree. You see I had wanted to go into computer repair, and the only degree that they offered was in programming. I am dyslexic and computer programming becomes a nightmare with dyslexia. Had I met with the right counselor and talked at length about my dreams and interests, perhaps my entrepreneurial bend would have come out and I would have taken business classes instead. Who knows where going down that path would have lead me!

    One of the biggest questions for me at the time was what can I do that will earn the most money. This seems to be the driving question of most people when looking at their future.

When I see people talking about becoming an entrepreneur, the most frequent question I see is, "What will make me the most money?" Money is an important consideration; however, it should never take precedence in your decision making, as tempting as that is. You see there are many people who succeed in making a lot of money but failed in finding true contentment with their lives. A quick google search of discontented millionaires will show this to be true.

At this point, I have already written somewhere around 400 words or so. So you are likely wondering, what does any of this have to do with Marvel or DC? Well, let us go ahead and dive into that now.  

A few weeks ago, I watched "Avengers Infinity War" for the second time. Because I had quite enjoyed it, I did what I often do with movies I enjoy, and that is to dig deeper into the movie. I went on YouTube to watch analysis and reviews of the movie. While doing this I came across comparison videos between the MCU and the DCEU and watched those as well.

    I started to notice a trend. Most of the videos that I watched indicated that the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has been far more successful both critically and financially than the DC Extended Universe (DCEU)

    The interesting thing is that Marvel had some major disadvantages when compared to DC and they should not have been this successful. So what has happened to allow them to be so successful? Many theories have out but there is one overall underlying theme that seems to be the main reason, and I'll come back to that.   

    Well, let's look at the advantages DC has had. First of all, they existed before Marvel, they had the first and arguably one of the biggest and most well-known superheroes of all time (Superman). They not only the first to create a superhero movie, but they have also had the overall more successful superhero movies before the advent of the MCU. The owners of DC (The Warner Brothers) hold the film rights to every DC character. This means that they can make any movie they want without a legal battle.

    Meanwhile, Marvel was in a different situation. Marvel was late to both the comic and movie game, their superheroes are less well known, their early movies were horrible flops. Also to top it off there most well known and franchises, Spiderman, The X-Men, Wolverine and the Fantastic 4 are owned by different companies and so Marvel needs legal permission to use any of these Characters.

    Now while the X-Men, Wolverine and Spiderman films have seen some strong success, they have not been nearly as successful as the MCU. While Marvel had some say in these and indeed worked directly on some of these, they still were unable to make the movies the way they wanted to. This was due to being financed by other parties who had the final say on how the movies were produced.

    In 2007 Marvel Studios self-financed and started to make the movies in the way they wanted to, starting with "Iron Man." In order to do this they put up as collateral the movie rights for 10 of their character franchises, so if they were not successful they would have lost a lot. This apparent gamble paid off, for not only did "Iron Man" rake in huge box office returns but the appearance of Samuel L Jackson as  "Nick Fury" set off a huge amount of buzz about the MCU to come. Being able to follow their passion, they have become one of if not the most dominant forces in cinema.

    Meanwhile, DC had released a few unconnected movies including a few Batman movies and one new Superman movie. They had some real success with the Batman films but they had no interconnected universe.

    After the success of the first "Avengers" movie in 2012, DC decided to create their own interconnected universe leading up to a large crossover team movie. However, they ran into the problem of studio meddling. The Warner Brothers forced the directors to try to link all the films together and build up to the "Justice League" film as much as possible. This was often at the cost of good storytelling.

    What was the reason for this meddling? Was it to try to craft an amazing new DC universe for us to enjoy? Nope. From everything I have read or heard,  There seems to be one main underlying focus: Money. Cash. Moolah. Yes not only did Warner brothers apparently try to force a cohesive universe to cash in but according to an article on Cinema Blend, they rushed the production in order to keep their executive bonuses from disappearing in a merger with another company!  No passion for creating good cinema or telling their stories, just a passion to line their own pockets! This is what I think may have lead to their downfall.

    You see from everything I have read and heard on the subject, it appears that DC is going to give up with the whole extended universe idea and go back to single movies, or perhaps a sequel or two but not really push for a full interconnected universe. A lot of fans are disappointed in this, as am I. While always being more an overall fan of Marvel, I grew up with Christopher Reeves as Superman, and I loved all his movies (even the ones that seem a bit goofy now). I was hoping this would work for them better than it has.

    This brings me back to my main point. When it comes to choosing where you will be spending most of your day, and most of your life, you need to be purposeful in making this decision. Again you need to look at more than just the income that is possible. You need to consider what you are currently, or could become passionate about.  

    For example, I know a person who “Grew Up” working in his family's business, and to him, it was just a “Job” He went off and worked in the IT industry. He thought it was fun, and it paid well but it just was not him. So he went back to what he knew and eventually started his own business in the same industry. He became passionate about his work and is now a leader and instructor in the industry.

    Money is important, you need money to live, to provide for your family and others. So yes, money is a factor. However, if money is all you pursue, you may succeed in making money, but fail in finding true contentment with your life. As a matter of fact, as Marvel proves, if you pursue your passion first, the money often follows.  I am not the only one saying this, I have seen this in other books on personal growth and business. These books are a big part of what changed my life. In a way I was bitten by a business bookworm, not a radioactive spider, to become what I am today.

    I do not have a superhero origin story; however, I do have an Entrepreneurs Origin Story, of which I will elaborate on in my next post.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Entrepreneur,
Isaiah O’Connor.
For my related podcast you can click here. The MCU, DCEU and choosing your career.

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