Over the last nine years, Marvel has turned itself from an unsure and often awkward player in the movie space to just about the biggest game in town. Some of that, of course, has to do with the sale to Disney and some shrewd business decisions, but a lot of it also has to do with the studio more often than not finding the right tone to match its subject matter. Sometimes that's goofy and over the top like in Guardians Of The Galaxy. Sometimes that's narcissistic and brash like in Iron Man, and sometimes that's referential like last night, when the company hilariously used the Mayweather and McGregor fight to hype Thor: Ragnarok on Twitter.
It stated with a tweet so innocuous most fans thorught it was merely movie promotion. A few hours before the main event started, the Marvel Studios Twitter fired out with a GIF about how Thor and Hulk were about to fight. You can check it out below...
But as the actual fight began, the Tweets started happening often enough and were seemingly specific enough that fans started realizing what was actually going on. In a brilliant attempt to stay in the conversation and bond with fans on another level, whoever was running the Twitter account was hanging out, watching the fight and using Loki, Thor and even Jeff Goldblum to express emotions. Good thing they all have such expressive faces...
In a strange way, the Hulk and Thor fight Marvel has been teasing since the first full Ragnarok trailer is an excellent comparison for the Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor boxing match millions watched last night. On paper, it was a sideshow, a mixed martial artist with unstoppable charisma in the prime of his career switching disciplines to fight a much smaller and much older undefeated boxer at his game. Thankfully, the actual fight, by most people's estimations, was way more entertaining than expected. Fingers crossed the battle between Thor and Hulk turns out to be a weird and mesmerizing good time too. Or at least the larger film works.
To check out the rest of Marvel Studios' tweets during the Mayweather and McGregor fight, you can head over to the company's Twitter page. To check out a full recap of the way, way better than expected Mayweather and McGregor fight, you can check out The New York Times' round-by-round analysis here. And for the hell of it, you can check out one more of the tweets below...
Thor: Ragnarok will hit theaters on November 3rd, 2017 in the United States (see full movie release schedule). Early buzz has been one of excitement among fans, especially because of the Thor and Hulk fight in the trailer. That being said, there is perhaps no Marvel franchise that is more polarizing to fans than Thor and its sequel. Some love the original fish out of water tale, as it's the lightest and among the most fun of all the MCU movies. Others consider it to be lesser Marvel for those very same reasons. We'll see what reputation the third entry earns.
