The sizeable box office success of Marvel and director James Gunn’s Guardians Of The Galaxy continued a winning streak for the studio that goes back to film number one, when it put its own money behind Iron Man. It’s an extraordinary success story, where time after time a nine figure gamble is made, and the jackpot is hit. Nobody is expecting that not to happen again with next year’s Avengers sequel, that Joss Whedon recently wrapped production on.

It’s little secret that pretty much every major studio is now building a cinematic universe off the back of the Marvel model. Disney has another, with Star Wars, whilst Fox is playing with X-Men and Fantastic Four. Sony is juggling Spider-Man. Universal has put a classic monsters universe into motion. Warner Bros is lining up its DC properties, even if it’s not naming most of them yet. Even Paramount was looking to do a spin-off from its recent Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit movie, before its muted box office put pay to that. But you can bet it’s looking at similar spin-offs elsewhere.

Yet even when studios have had some success with cinematic universes, and there’s a sense that Fox made a real breakthrough this year with X-Men: Days Of Future Past, none of them come anywhere close to the marketing stronghold in particular that Marvel seems to hold.

This is particularly evident when a new film comes around, and Marvel’s machine is particularly well oiled in this regard. You’re all likely to be familiar with the process. The early press screening of the film has an embargo on it, prohibiting reviews from running until a certain date. However, Twitter reactions tend to be encouraged. Thus, for pretty much every Marvel film, the initial swarm of Twitter responses is hugely positive. Articles compiling these reactions follow, and the balloon of hype gets yet more air.