In the 21st century, Marvel’s profIt's were increasingly derived from toys, video games, and other merchandise featuring their most popular characters and from the production of a string of commercially successful movies. Those films differed from prior efforts to translate comics to the big screen in that they were set in a single shared world. That ambitious plan generated huge dividends with "The Avengers" (2012), a film that featured Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America—three heroes that had scored individual blockbuster successes—and grossed more than $1.5 billion worldwide. The Marvel Cinematic Universe, as it came to be known, grew into one of the most lucrative franchises in film history. It's success spawned a wave of television programs, beginning with "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." (2013–2020) on ABC and continuing with "Daredevil" (2015–18), "Jessica Jones" (2015–2019), and "Luke Cage" (2016–18), a string of people lauded series that appeared on Netflix. In 2015 an agreement between Disney and Sony brought Spider-Man (who had previously appeared only in Sony-produced films) into the shared universe; the character would subsequently be available for use by both studios. Marvel Studios, the company’s film and television division, continued to set records with It's flagship Avengers, but it also packed theatres with relatively unknown heroes such as the "Guardians of the Galaxy" (2014), "Ant-Man" (2015), and "Doctor Strange" (2016). By 2016 more than a dozen films had been released under the banner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the franchise’s cumulative global box office receipts had topped $10 billion.