By Sydney Spector

The new “Infinity War” trailer dropped, and 15 minutes after its release on November 29, it had already reached 500,000 views on YouTube.  Nearly 24 hours later, it became the No. 1  trending video on YouTube. Now, a week later, it  has almost 90 million views on YouTube.

But this trend isn’t just for the “Avengers” franchise, it has been repeated over and over again with superhero movies.  In the past nine years, since the launch of the first “Iron Man” movie in 2008, superhero movies have grossed well over a billion dollars domestically and internationally. The most recent Marvel trailer, “Thor: Ragnarok” reached 136 million views since its release in April and became one of Disney’s most watched trailers of all time, raking in more views than the trailer for the 2017 version of “Beauty and the Beast,” the previous record holder.

The idea of superheroes isn’t something that came about in the 20th century. The origin of the superhero, some people argue, can be traced back to “The Iliad,” written in Ancient Greece in 730 BC (give or take 50 years). “The Iliad” tells the story of Achilles, the demigod son of Zeus, and his participation in the Trojan War.

MPH’s Mr. Preston found out about the “Infinity War” trailer when he was heading to snack, when Mr. Twomey-Smith pulled him into his room along with Mr. Montas and watched the trailer with excitement.

“I try to watch [the trailer] like a 12 or 13-year-old kid. I just completely suspend all my expectations and just get sucked in by the excitement of a big trailer dropping like this.” said Twomey-Smith, who was really excited that the trailer showed a lot of Spider-Man. “I can’t wait till May.”

Now,  nine years and about 17 films since the trend started, everyone from “Thor,” “Guardians of the Galaxy”and “The Avengers” franchises will come together with a film that, if following Marvel trends, will break the box office.

And now, all we do is wait until May 4th.
Look for more from Sydney Spector on the superhero movie trend in our 2018 issue of the Pebble.