How Did Marvel Become the Biggest Name in Movies?
20 October 2023 - 33 minsIn 2008 — the same year that Robert Downey Jr. appeared in the action comedy “Tropic Thunder,” for which he would earn his second Oscar nomination — he also appeared as the billionaire inventor and unlikely superhero Tony Stark in “Iron Man,” the debut feature from the upstart Marvel Studios.
Downey lost the Oscar (to Heath Ledger in “The Dark Knight”), but Marvel won the day. In the 15 years since “Iron Man” came out, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has expanded to 32 films that have earned a staggering $26 billion and changed the world of moviemaking for a generation.
In a new book, “MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios,” the writers Joanna Robinson, Dave Gonzales and Gavin Edwards explore th...
Series Episodes
'The Interview': Isabel Allende Understands How Fear Changes a Society
The Book Review is off this week, but please enjoy this episode of the The New York Times podcast "The Interview," in which Gilbert Cruz speaks with the author Isabel Allende about her new novel "My Name is Emilia del Valle."
42 mins
2 May Finished
Book Club: Let’s Talk About Adam Ross’s ‘Playworld’
Set in New York in the 1980s, Adam Ross’s new novel, “Playworld,” tells the story of a young actor named Griffin as he navigates the chaos of the city, of his family and of being a teenager. On this week’s episode, the Book Club host MJ Franklin discusses “Playworld” with Book Review editors Dave Kim and Sadie Stein.
43 mins
25 April Finished
'The Great Gatsby' at 100
A century after “The Great Gatsby” was first published, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s slender novel about a mysterious, lovelorn millionaire living and dying in a Long Island mansion has become among the most widely read American fictions — and also among the most analyzed and interpreted. A.O. Scott joins host Gilbert Cruz this week to discuss Fitzgerald’s novel and its long afterlife.
31 mins
11 April Finished
Colum McCann on Undersea Cables and His New Novel "Twist"
In his new novel, “Twist,” the National Book Award-winning Irish writer Colum McCann tells the story of a journalist deep at sea in more ways then one: A man adrift, he accepts a magazine assignment to write about the crews who maintain and repair the undersea cables that transmit all of the world’s information. Naturally, the assignment becomes more treacherous and psychologically fraught than he had anticipated. On this week’s episode, McCann tells host Gilbert Cruz how he became interested in the topic of information cables and why the story resonated for him at multiple levels.
37 mins
4 April Finished
Book Club: Let's Talk About "We Do Not Part," by Han Kang
The novel “We Do Not Part,” by the Nobel laureate Han Kang, involves a pet-sitting quest gone surreal: It follows a writer and documentarian whose hospitalized friend beseeches her to take care of her stranded pet parakeet on an island hundreds of miles away. When she arrives, the writer finds not only the bird but also an apparition of her friend, who has a devastating history to tell. On this week’s episode, the Book Club host MJ Franklin discusses “We Do Not Part” with fellow Book Review editors Lauren Christensen and Emily Eakin.
49 mins
28 March Finished
