Marvel movies are usually made for all audiences, but these details may only be noticed by adult viewers. The popularity of the superhero movie genre has resulted in dozens of movies being made over the last two decades. Fox and Sony found success with Marvel movies in the early 2000s, and then Marvel Studios helped revolutionize the genre starting in 2008. For the most part, these high-budget movies have catered to audiences of all ages to have the best chance of being successful.
As the different franchises have grown and audiences matured with the longevity of many, these films have started including more moments, jokes, references, and characters for older audiences. Outside of the Deadpool franchise and Logan though, the movies as a whole are still welcomed to younger viewers, they may just not get all of the different references and jokes Marvel movies include as a result.
In the most recent Screen Rant video, we take a look at 25 different things in Marvel movies that only adults have likely noticed. These can range from references to old movies, pop culture references that are now dated, and innuendos meant to make adults laugh. Check out the full list of these moments in the video featured at the top of this post.
Some of the more obvious references for adults that younger audiences could miss are callbacks to older movies. The Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze action movie Point Break has been called out a few times in the MCU, while nods to Pulp Fiction, Risky Business, Footloose, Ferris Beuler’s Day Off, and (most recently) The Big Lebowski have come too. Younger audiences probably didn’t fully understand references to artist Jackson Pollock and may not even know what Myspace is.
The moments that adults certainly understood and hoped younger audiences didn’t notice are the innuendos these movies have included. Christine Everheart’s “spread” on Tony Stark in Iron Man 2, Hawkeye’s inability to “get it up” in Avengers: Age of Ultron, Tony hoping Black Widow and Hulk aren’t playing “hide the zucchini,” and Deadpool alluding to how big something would feel in his baby hand were all moments that only the older viewers noticed. These jokes and references are just a handful of the ones that have been made in Marvel movies, as characters like Iron Man, Star-Lord, and Spider-Man are walking reference machines. As the Marvel movies continue to grow and diversify their content and target audiences, we can’t wait to see what they include next.
