"MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios," by Joanna Robinson et al.

Note: Due to the forecasted heat & humidity, our meeting location has moved indoors close to where the other book club is meeting!

Shall we discuss the most successful movie franchise of all time?! Our first non-fiction selection of the year covers the powerhouse fictional Marvel Universe. It's a phenomenon that's inundated us for a couple decades now, becoming an integral part of our contemporary pop culture fabric. Love it or hate it, we all know a little something about the MCU's movies & series and their characters, so let's find out more about how it got to where it is today. A fun, lighter read to start this summer season! Happy reminiscing along the way, as the MCU's next projects inexorably roll out for this blockbuster season.

From Goodreads:

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "A superb chronicle of how Marvel Studios conquered Hollywood…. This definitive account of the Hollywood juggernaut thrills." ― Publishers Weekly , starred review

The unauthorized, behind-the-scenes story of the stunning rise―and suddenly uncertain reign―of the most transformative cultural phenomenon of our the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel Entertainment was a moribund toymaker not even twenty years ago. Today, Marvel Studios is the dominant player both in Hollywood and in global pop culture. How did an upstart studio conquer the world?

In MCU, beloved culture writers Joanna Robinson, Dave Gonzales, and Gavin Edwards draw on more than a hundred interviews with actors, producers, directors, and writers to present the definitive chronicle of Marvel Studios and its sole, ongoing production, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. For all its outward success, the studio was forged by near-constant conflict, from the contentious hiring of Robert Downey Jr. for its 2008 debut, "Iron Man", all the way up to the disappointment of "Ant-Man and the Quantumania" and shocking departures of multiple Marvel executives in 2023.

Throughout, the authors demonstrate that the original genius of Marvel was its resurrection and modification of Hollywood’s old studio system. But will it survive its own spectacular achievements? Dishy and authoritative, MCU is the first book to tell the Marvel Studios story in full―and an essential, effervescent account of American mass culture.