Marvel Entertainment was a moribund toymaker not even twenty years ago. Today, Marvel Studios is the dominant player both in Hollywood and in global pop culture. What accounts for its stunning rise? In MCU, beloved culture writers Joanna Robinson, Dave Gonzales, and Gavin Edwards draw on more than a hundred interviews with actors, producers, directors, and writers to present the definitive chronicle of Marvel Studios and its sole, ongoing production, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. As they delve into the studio's key moments-from the contentious hiring of Robert Downey Jr. for Iron Man to the negotiations over Disney's acquisition of Marvel to studio head Kevin Feige's embrace of streaming TV-the authors demonstrate that the genius of Marvel was its resurrection and modification of Hollywood's old studio system. Dishy and authoritative, MCU is the first book to tell the Marvel Studios story in full-and an essential, effervescent account of American mass culture.