Marvel Cinematic Universe

The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is an American media franchise and shared fictional universe that is centred on a series of superhero films, independently produced by Marvel Studios and based on characters that appear in publications by Marvel Comics. The franchise has expanded to include comic books, short films, and television series. The shared universe, much like the original Marvel Universe in comic books, was established by crossing over common plot elements, settings, cast, and characters.

The first film released in the MCU was Iron Man (2008), which began the first phase of films, culminating in the Marvel's The Avengers (2012) crossover film. "Phase Two" began with Iron Man 3 (2013), and concluded with The Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015). "Phase Three", began with the release of Ant-Man and the Wasp (2016). Marvel Television expanded the universe further, first with Hawkeye in 2009 and then again with Daredevil in 2015. The MCU also includes tie-in comics and the Marvel One-Shots direct-to-video short films.

The franchise has been seen as an impressive and groundbreaking success in terms of a multimedia shared universe, though critics have found that some of its films and television series have suffered in service of the wider universe. It has inspired other film and television studios with comic book character adaptation rights to attempt to create similar shared universes.