*Spoiler Alert*
In this Post I will identify the key ideas of Transmedia, using the Marvel cinematic universe and their spin off television shows such as Agents of Shield, Agent Carter and the newly released Daredevil.
In its beginning Marvel made comic books, creating hundreds of characters being printed out to the page; today, Marvel not only continues to make comic books but has also translated their characters to other mediums such as movies and, even more recently, television shows. To make this Case study more specific I will only talk about one section known as the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The concept for this began with movies, movies that are apart of a broader universe that tie into each others story lines, movies like Iron-man, Thor and Captain America. After such a great success Marvel studios took a turn to television. The problem they originally faced with the movies was that not every character was big enough to have their own movie, even though in the past these characters may have had their own comic book. By creating a television series the studio could still get the story out to the community of loyal MCU fans, but in a much cheaper way.
The specific thing to understand is that the Television shows are still apart of the MCU and is closely aligned with the events within it. For example, after The Avengers was released in cinemas the Television show Agents of Shield was directly linked to finding Alien content that had been left on earth from what occurred in the Avengers movie. As the series went on and more movies were released other correlations happened. When Thor the Dark Wold was released and cities were destroyed, the same cities were depicted in Agents of Shield. When Captain America the Winter Soldier was released and revealed that Shield was actually led by the Nazi devision Hydra, the Television show was once again directly effected.
Most recently Marvel Studios has turned to the online streaming service Netflix to release there most recent addition to the MCU, Daredevil. This show was released in the classic Netflix way, a series at a time.
This is a great example of Transmedia. Media that has been translated to fit different mediums. It would seem that companies have found out that this is a good money spinner as well, knowing that in order for the fans to keep up to date they must watch an increasing amount of media on different media platforms.
Television as we know it now has changed from beyond the tube, it is now seen on the internet and streaming devices and has a closer connection to cinema blockbusters and Marvel are using this cultural technology to broaden their horizons an encompass a bigger community following their MCU. Marvel isn’t the only one doing this either, you need only to look at their direct competitors DC comics to find a similar idea. DC has released plans to create the Justice League. The heroes with a bigger cult following like Batman and Superman have had their own movies, but the smaller heroes have opted for television shows like Arrow and The Flash, once again, all apart of the same universe.
All in all, transmedia media looks like the new thing to watch out for.