The Marvel Cinematic Universe was, and still is, a huge phenomenon in the world of entertainment. Never before had there been such a collection of disparate, interconnected standalone movies that all shared the same universe, which culminated in films that brought all of the franchises together. The formula was so successful that other studios sought to create their own shared universes, with not nearly as much success. But this innovation in film is just an iteration of something that had been done many times before in comic books and literature.
I define a shared universe as a collection of standalone story franchises that all interact and inhabit the same storyspace. This is different from an epic series with multiple books like Dune, or a franchise that creates multiple spinoffs like Star Trek. In a shared universe, each property can and often does work independently of any other entry into the franchise and is not dependent on familiarity with any other franchise for its own relevance. It’s like Nancy Drew having frequent team-up stories with the Hardy Boys: these are two well-established franchises that sometimes interact.
This was something that hadn’t been tried before at a major level in film, but shared universes are commonplace in literature and comic books. The most notable examples I can think of are the Marvel and DC comic book universes, Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, The Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts franchises, and the collection of worlds and characters that define the popular trading card game Magic: The Gathering. This is a model that can be very lucrative at many levels if handled correctly. But can be disastrous if mishandled. So the question becomes whether this is a model you as a writer would want to pursue for your stories, as well as how to pull it off successfully.
WHY YOU SHOULD DO IT:
Cross promotion and marketing
Sometimes the best way to promote franshises is via other franchises. This is why successful TV shows often have “backdoor pilots,” which are episodes of the show specifically designed to spotlight a new cast of characters in hopes of sparking interest in a spinoff show. The familiarity of a property your audience is familiar with could be a great launching pad for a new property.
Franchising and branding possibilities
In many cases, the whole is very equal to the sum of its parts. Having a solid lineup of independent franchises compose your shared universe creates a feeling of community that your audience can relate to.
When one thinks of the Discworld, they probably think of their favorite book subseries like Commander Vimes & the Watch, but other series will also come to mind like the 3 Witches, Moist Von Lipwig, Rincewind & The Wizards, Susan Sto Helit, and Tiffany Aching. That familiarity only strengthens the brand of the Universe as a whole.
Building fanbases for characters and plot arcs
The added exposure of having franchises interconnected with other franchises allows for more of your audience to develop a connection with them. You can really build the fanbase of a franchise by tying it into a larger world. Likewise with plot arcs that resonate. Many of Magic: The Gatherinsg’s Planeswalker characters gained popularity and notoriety from interacting with their resident superteam The Gatewatch, as well as though the epic War of the Spark storyline.
Building a following
A shared Universe is a great way to build a following for multiple franchises at once. Your audience will take an interest in seeing what new characters and elements will be included in your universe, as well as how the established elements wold react to them.
WHY YOU SHOULDN’T DO IT
Connections can become overly convoluted and confusing
The more elements you add to a universe, the more potential there is for things to get confusing. It can become a puzzle figuring out how everything and everyone fits together and relates. In he 80s and 90s, DC Comics had to have two massive comic book events to clean up their convoluted issues: the first one dealing with their plethora of different versions of the same heroes and worlds (Crisis on Infinite Earths), and then one to fix their inconsistent historical timeline (Zero Hour). You have to keep careful track of each element you introduce into your universe, and that in itself comes with issues, as I will elaborate on in a couple of paragraphs.
Forcing your audience to follow everything
A big problem with shared universes is that a newbie may see all of the interconnected franchises and feel intimidated. If there is no real jumping on point, they will feel that they have missed too much to get on board, or that following all of the disparate stories just to see how they connect or so that they won’t be left in the dark when a story comes down the line that references the past is too intimidating. This was a problem that some people had with Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. Those films were rewards for longtime fans, but newcomers had a hard time figuring out what was going on and why.
Keeping track of all the details
Your bookkeeping gets way more extensive with a shared universe, because there are so many more story details to keep track of. Everything has to be consistent across franchises, especially in areas where they overlap. And fans of your shared universe will quickly cry foul if they find something that doesn’t line up correctly. It can be quite tedious to double check everything to make sure there are no discrepancies, especially if your universe consists of a lot of interacting franchises.
The story never ends
Another issue that might become a problem is the pressure to continue adding to your universe and keep it growing. It becomes increasingly harder to add a standalone story, because your readers will always ask what ramifications that story will have on the universe overall, and if any future changes in the universe will have an effect on what happened in that story. This is an area where the dreaded story retcon can come into play, where you literally change the events of your past stories ipso facto to better fit your current narrative. As a general rule, you want to avoid retcons unless there is truly no other way to make what you have now work within the current narrative.
Here are some offhand examples of well-done shared universes.
Marvel and DC comic universes
Marvel Cinematic Universe
DC TV Universe (BKA The Arrowverse)
Harry Potter/Fantastic Beasts
Terry Pratchett’s Discworld
Magic: The Gathering Multiverse
The Glass Movie trilogy
The Law & Order series of TV shows
The Chicago shows series of TV shows
Th CSI series of TV shows.
In a future post I will offer some quick tips on creating your own shared universe, and ways to avoid certain pitfalls. I will also talk about how I approached creating a shared universe for two of my webcomics, The Seizure and Weekend Heroes.
