Upon finishing a work week with wonderful news, I seeked something on TV to unwind. Depleting Netflix's entire inventory, I'm now working through Disney+ and found that WandaVision was now available. The show starring Scarlet Witch and The Vision in Marvel's first TV series on Disney+.

If you're not familiar with these comic book series, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is viewed as the most prolific shared cinematic universe whose narratives have continuity and connection within one another. With 23 films total known as The Infinity Saga, connecting all these stories is an epic feat.

Many movie studios have attempted to replicate Marvel's success. As the Fabolous song goes, often replicated, never duplicated. Here are a few examples of shared cinematic universes other studios created in attempt to replicate Marvel Studios’ success:

• The DC Extended Universe (DCEU)

• Legendary's Mosterverse (Godzilla and King Kong)

• Star Wars sequel trilogy

• Dark Universe (The Mummy, Dracula, etc.)

These clone attempts don’t work because capital and trust haven’t been established. Many of these have been rushed by studio executives in order to rapidly montetize. Most people now know the MCU is the multi-billion dollar Disney enterprise, but it didn't always start that way. Marvel filed for Chapter 11 in 1996 and were on the verge of going out of business. As an act of desperation, Marvel sold off a lot of their assets, including the film rights to many flagship characters, such as Spider-Man.

Kevin Feige, Chief Creative Officer and head of Marvel is known as the mastermind behind the MCU’s success and architecture. His career also started in humble beginnings working on some of the campiest comic movies in the early 2000s that filled our ears with the Evanescence and Nickelback as part of the soundtrack.

Fun fact, did you know Michael Jackson threw his hat and glove in to play the role of Professor X in the 2000 X-Men film?

In 2008, the now renamed Marvel Studios released a film called Iron Man. Due to Marvel having to sell the rights of certain characters, they had a limited gallery of heroes on the silver screen. For the general audience, Iron Man wasn't a flagship character like Spider-Man or the Fantastic Four. Tony Stark, a role once slated for Tom Cruise was now going to be played by Robert Downey Jr; an actor at the time who was seen as washed up due to personal controversies would now be the man in the iron suit.

With a $140m budget and raking in $585.3 million in the box office, Iron Man exceeded expectations in their success; so much that Disney purchased them a year later for $4 billion. This film made famous the post-credit scenes, a teaser of what is to come after the film ends.

The end scene shows Stark coming back to his beachside home in Malibu, with someone in his house. Emerging from the shadows, a man dressed in all black with an eye patch turns to him and says, "You think you're the only super hero in the world?"

It's Nick Fury (played by Samuel L. Jackson), the Director of SHIELD. At the time, this was likely a playful Easter egg, but the injection of these scene built excitement and possibility of an Avengers movie; something I never thought I'd ever see manifest. Marvel Studios continued to release subsequent solo films with their limited assets: Hulk, Captain America, and Thor. The release of these films led to the architecture of The Avengers in 2012 (four years after Iron Man) which also included Black Widow and Hawkeye in the role. The introduced one of the most notable moments in cinematic history and film production.

It was a $1.59 billion box office success. This film was the experimental roadmap that people would see (and pay a lot of money) to experience films that interconnected to a larger event, as we would see with the introduction of the big bad Thanos which ended in Infinity War and End Game.

Certainly, one can attribute to a big budget to success, though it doesn't guarantee it. The DC extended universe is an example where it doesn't work as well. Let's take a look at some core elements that made MCU films work well.

Product quality increased

Over the 13 years, Marvel Studios have iterated on the quality of their product. It's hard to remember that Iron Man's soundtrack comprised of AC/DC and Black Sabbath songs. They invested heavily in musical composers, recruited top tier actors and continually raised the bar of the film quality.

Pivot when things don't work

The biggest flop in the 23 films is unanimously Thor: The Dark World. Though the sequel to Thor continued to star our favorite hunky Australian Chris Hemsworth, the film continued to portray the god of thunder in a Shakespearian manner with excessive dutch angles.

Marvel then hired Taika Waititi to take the helm for the third installment, Thor: Ragnorok, which pivoted to a comedy with bight colors and featured a soundtrack by Mark Mothersbaugh, the co-founder of the new wave band Devo. They completely pivoted on the tone.

Empowering the teams while providing a clear framework

What's most impressive to me is that Marvel Studios have provided a rigorous roadmap while allowing the directors and writers to build up the portfolio of narratives. Each film series have different directors who helm the narratives, some are responsible for architecting out certain areas of the shared universe. James Gunn, who directed Guardians of the Galaxy, was viewed as the architect for the cosmic characters. It’s quite amazing when you think nobody bats an eye when a superhero from Brooklyn is talking to a tree played by Vin Diesel and their suspense of disbelief is not phased.

Scale on opportunities as they go

As mentioned, Marvel had limited rights to characters because of past business decisions. At the time, Spider-Man was with Sony, and the X-Men and Fantastic Four belonged to Fox.

In a shocking turn of events, Marvel Studios struck a partnership with Sony to get the rights to Spider-Man to include him Captain America: Civil War. This was viewed as an impossible task unless the rights were sold to them. It's a valuable lesson to find ways to make things happen.

Fox ultimately got acquired by Disney, giving the rights of the characters back to Marvel. It's not surprising that WandaVision is likely going to play the House of M narrative, where Scarlet Witch shifts reality. Don't be surprised if that's how the X-Men get introduced. The lesson here is Marvel Studios didn’t wait for the industry to dictate what they could do, rather pushed it to the limits of what they needed.

Start small, and start with passion

Great things take time and commitment with failures along the way. When you look at excellence in what the MCU has achieved, it’s important to remember the scrappy beginnings they had to set them up for success in the first place.

Whatever your Iron Man is in your project or life, start with that.