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Marvel Studios is the golden goose of Hollywood, with even its 'failures' in fans' eyes being some of the top-grossing movies of the year. To date, they've had 35 movies, 23 TV series, and one special that have defied the odds to become the biggest thing in the movie industry and the modern-day movie pantheon. But in that unprecedented run over the past 18 years, the Marvel Cinematic Universe's success opened the door to other movie studios (and sometimes Marvel's own sister companies) to think it's something they can do as well.

And while it's possible that they can, the ideal of being 'the next Marvel Studios' is one that has led to the crash and burn of numerous cinematic universes that could've been great individual movies, but were seemingly crushed under the idea of building a family of movies before they even make a first great movie. Don't get me wrong - even Marvel Studios might have drunk a bit too much from the poisoned chalice that is the ideal of the MCU, but the returned Disney CEO Bob Iger seemed to be that good friend who helps tell you when you've drunk too much and to get you back on track.

Who had the first idea for a cinematic universe?

While there have been idle crossovers between movies and TV series in the past, it wasn't until the mid-00s that then-Marvel Studios boss David Maisel pushed the company to make the ultimate gamble: putting its trademarks and copyrights on the line in exchange for half a billion dollars to finance their own movies. After seeing the successes of Sony's Spider-Man movies and 20th Century Fox's X-Men movies, Marvel had the ambitious idea it could do it themselves, and was willing to risk it all to try.

The decision to create what we now know as the MCU wasn't one seriously considered until midway through filming of 2008's Iron Man, with that famous post-credits scene tacked on at the end based on a rushed set of script pages ghost-written by Marvel Comics writer Brian Michael Bendis. But after Iron Man became such a success, it spurred the other studios that owned other Marvel movie rights to reconsider their individual rights as families unto themselves.

When the other Marvel movie studios saw what the MCU was doing

20th Century Fox was first out of the gate, re-conceptualizing its singular X-Men movies as the basis for a family of movies, possibly tying into the other Marvel movie rights it owned in the Fantastic Four and Daredevil. In 2010, writers were hired to bring the three franchises together, with the Bourne Supremacy's Paul Greengrass in talks to make the thing. Other possible projects also began percolating, with movie pitches (and announcements even) for Gambit, X-Force, Alpha Flight, Exiles, Multiple Man, and Kitty Pryde. Those movies were never made, and ultimately those franchises all folded back into Marvel Studios - Daredevil seemingly out of running out of ideas, and then the FF and X-Men franchises with Disney's acquisition of 20th Century Fox.

Sony, which has owned the Spider-Man movie rights since the '90s, saw what was happening at Marvel Studios and, after deciding to reboot its Spider-Man movies in 2010, it began seeing it as more than just Spider-Man movies. A Venom movie, which had been in mild discussions before Iron Man, got put into overdrive following the early success of the MCU, and after 2012's Amazing Spider-Man, the studio went into full gear with plans for a Venom movie and a Sinister Six movie. Fast forward a decade or so and a couple solo villain movies, and Sony seems to have backtracked on creating a whole universe and instead are back to creating a good movie - and they're doing that with the Spider-Verse films.

The MCU formula gets jacked like Captain America's Super Soldier Serum

Perhaps the most ambitious (and most disastrous) of the sordid cinematic universes dreamt up in the wake of the MCU's success was Universal Pictures' so-called Dark Universe. Created just as Comcast acquired the storied studio, The Dark Universe was an idea to take its old, classic monster movies and integrate them into one cohesive cinematic universe. It's a noble idea, and a stunning cast. Imagine starting a cinematic universe with this cast:

• Javier Bardem as Frankenstein's Monster
• Angelinia Jolie as Elizabeth, the Bride of Frankenstein
• Russell Crowe as Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
• Scarlett Johansson for a lead role in a Creature From the Black Lagoon movie
• Johnny Depp as the Invisible Man
• Channing Tatum as Van Helsing
• Sofia Boutella as the Mummy
• Tom Cruise as a new character, U.S. Army Sergeant Nick Morton
• Luke Evans as Dracula
• Jasmin Cephas Jones as Mina Harker
• Ryan Gosling as the Wolfman

Virtually all of them each had their own movie planned, and two of them actually came out - 2014's Dracula Untold and 2017's The Mummy. But after dismal performances both critically and commercially, with even a staged Dark Universe group cast photo being unable to lift it out of the proverbial ditch it was in, like some Icarus gone wrong.

DC and Lucasfilm revamp themselves in the model of the MCU

After the unprecedented success of 2012's The Avengers, even bigger players took notice.

Warner Bros., which in many ways created the superhero movie formula years ago with Christopher Reeve's Superman movies and Michael Keaton's Batman movies, decided to reboot its entire superhero movie line to create one cohesive universe. To help do it, Warner Bros. promoted a comics writer who happened to be a colleague of Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige in his early days in the form of Geoff Johns, who led to the construction of a semi-connected universe with two facets - the TV universe led by CW's Arrow, and then the movie universe led by Zack Snyder's Man of Steel. In many ways, every DC TV and movie project was intended to be the trailer for the next thing, be it another movie, another episode, but in many cases, another project.

Meanwhile, a year into Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm led to a jumper cable-like jumpstart of the Star Wars movies with a new trilogy led by J.J. Abrams, and talks of standalone movies with the subtitle of 'A Star Wars Story.' This is where the Han Solo prequel and Rogue One came from, but also announced movies for Boba Fett and Yoda, as well as later ones for Obi-Wan Kenobi (which eventually became the TV series) and Jabba the Hutt. A Knights of the Old Republic film was in development at one point, as well as an aborted trilogy from the creators of the Game of Thrones TV series.

King Arthur, the Transformers, G.I. Joe, and more drink from the cursed chalice of being 'the next MCU'

Around the same time, Warner Bros. began circling the idea of making a King Arthur cinematic universe - six films, branching out into movies for not only King Arthur, but Merlin, Guinevere, and others as well. On its third attempt, it secured director Guy Ritchie and actor Charlie Hunnam to kick it off, but 2017's King Arthur: Legend of the Sword proved to be a one-and-done for everyone involved.

Meanwhile, Paramount was riding high off the first four Transformers movies with Michael Bay, and went all in in hiring an all-star writers' room to turn the singular Transformers franchise into a multi-faceted cinematic universe looping in other Hasbro properties such as G.I. Joe, Micronauts, M.A.S.K., ROM, and more. The room included 2008's Iron Man writers Art Marcum and Matt Holloway, The Walking Dead co-creator Robert Kirkman, Avengers co-writer Zak Penn, Saga co-creator Brian K. Vaughan, Michael Chabon, and more to figure out franchise possibilities beyond just another Transformers movie, but for solo movies, crossover movies, and more. 2018's Bumblebee prequel came out of that, as well as the post-credits scene of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts in 2023, but... well... not much else.

What we've learned from the cursed chalice of the MCU

With the MCU, people only remember the successes (for the most part) - what they don't remember is the decades and decades of failures and setbacks that led to it - and they discount the luck, perfect timing, and creative talent that made it work. If you look at some of Marvel's recent projects, even Marvel Studios has shown it's hard to be like Marvel Studios. The success we see in replicating this format is in making smart choices and being able to say 'no' sometimes; you see smaller success with AMC's The Walking Dead TV universe and its budding Immortal Universe of Anne Rice shows, as well as Toho & Legendary's MonsterVerse line of movies and TV shows. But even then they're not trying to be as big as Marvel Studios - they're trying to be as big as they can be, which is much different - while still being open to get bigger.

Consider this a meta post-credits scene for Marvel fans - the four key articles you need to read next to continue the thrills:

• How to watch the Marvel Cinematic Universe in release or chronological order
• The best Marvel Comics stories of all time
• All the MCU movies ranked from best to worst
• Our weekly Marvel insider's column, Marvel Matters