An Interview With President of Marvel Studios Kevin Feige! #CaptainAmericaEvent

By: Vanessa Diaz | 1 comment

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Hey All!

It’s not every day that you get the opportunity to sit down with the President of Marvel Studios Kevin Feige to pick his brain about Captain America: The Winter Soldier and all the upcoming Marvel films in Phase 2. I am lucky to say I finally got this opportunity thanks to Disney! I have been hoping to get to meet Kevin for a very long time. Every since he presented the Marvel films at Comic Con and Disney’s D23 Convention, I’ve been obsessed with everything Phase 2. When we chatted with him they hadn’t started filming Avengers 2 yet, but obviously all geeks know it has begun filming all around the world. Just an fyi if you read the interview and think to yourself didn’t they already start shooting?

Here is what Kevin had to say about Captain America and the future releases of Marvel Studios:

Can you tell us what comes next for Marvel Studios?

Kevin:

I can tell you what you already know, what we’re actually on. We’re spending a lot of time now in the cutting room on “Guardians of the Galaxy” which comes out August 1st. We just released the Teaser for it recently. And in bout 2 weeks, we start filming “Avengers Age of Ultron.” So that’s coming up very fast and that will be the next movie up in May of 2015. And then in about 10 weeks, we start filming “Ant-Man” with Michael Douglas and Paul Rudd and that comes out in July of 2015.

We haven’t announced what comes after that in 2016/2017, but we’re actively working on any number of things and are beginning to hone in on exactly what the Movies will be in like in 2016 and 2017, but it’s slightly too early to talk about.

Talk about the controversy around Winter Soldier?

Kevin:

Comic Fans always knew sort of two things about peak Characters that die and come back to life in Comics. It’s like Soap Operas or in any sort of Fiction all the time. But there are two Characters in the Marvel Universe that are never gonna come back to life, Uncle Ben and Bucky Barnes. And about 10 years ago or 12 years ago, a Comic Book Writer, Ed Brubaker went to Publishing. I didn’t have anything to do with it, he went to Publishing and said, I have an idea to bring Bucky Barnes back. And I’m sure they’re like what are you talking about? You can’t do that. And they pitched the idea and it was great. And it was the Winter Soldier idea and it was done so well and you’re right, I think Fans went No, you can’t! Oh that’s great, we love that. We just took the successful blueprint that they had already done and brought it into this Movie.

What problems did you have on the Big Screen vs. the Comics?

Kevin:

Well that was one of the reasons to do it, is that those are two of the reasons to do it. It has never been done before which is, you don’t get a chance very often to do something in this business that’s never been done before, 100 years of Cinema. Now somebody will point out somewhere they’re done it before but your point is taken. And that is what the Comics have been. It was a shared Universe from its inception essentially in the Comics. And when it was sort of Character by Characters, Studio by Studio, that was impossible but when we became our own Studio and had got the financing to do that, it was the first idea was make a great Ironman movie and the second idea was wait a minute, we can begin to tie these together.

You know, the biggest challenge is making it, making that continuity and that inter-connectivity broaden the Universe, broaden the Audience as opposed to make it feel like a Club, making it fold in on itself and say, Oh you need to know everything that’s going to see any of these Movies. We work very hard to make each of the Movies feel like a stand-alone Movie, but at the same time connect in to everything else. I wouldn’t say that’s the biggest challenge but that’s been our sort of our Mission Statement and that’s what we try to stick to.

Is it intentional that you always incorporate villains that stem from a superheroes past?

Kevin:

Well I think that’s indicative of our development process. We just believe that’s the best way to bring the Villains into it the story. It’s more personal in this movie than in any other movie because of who the Winter Soldier is but, you know, Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s Father, right? I mean, that’s a Spoiler, Shoot, Sorry. But that is often the case from the Comics and from Mythology. That is just a wonderful way to link a Hero to Villain. And that’s what we’ve done.

Are there perks with working with Celebrities?

Kevin:

No. The only favor I want is for them to do the Movie and to do an amazing job in the Movie and they have done that up to this point.

Is there any hope to get other Characters with other Studios?

Kevin:

No I think we’re all doing our own things. SONY’s busy working on Spiderman Movies, Spiderman II is coming out very soon. Fox is uh working very hard on X-Men and they’ve got an X-Men Movie coming out very soon. We clearly are spending a lot of time doing our two Movies, two Movies a year. I don’t want to say Never say Never necessarily but I don’t know that would happen any time soon, and we’re certainly not planning for it. Maybe in Phase 12.

So give up hope for seeing Spider-Man in an Avengers movie now folks!

What are you most excited about?

Kevin:

I am most excited about how the World reacted to that Teaser for Guardians of The Galaxy! I’m very, very happy with it because that Teaser, you know, represents the tone and the film and the vibe of the Movie quite overtly. We were sort of leading with our most unique and different element, which is not always what Movie Markers do. They sort of go, “Oh hey look, it fits into this box!” We were leading with what the most unique elements of the Movie are which I’m very happy with and more happy that people seem to be on board with it.

As we’ve been talking about today, each Marvel Studio’s Movie needs to be unique, needs to feel like its own fresh entity but Guardians takes that to the extreme. I mean it really is more different and a fresh original Movie. It happens to be based on a Marvel Comic Book but for all intensive purposes though, from an Audience who has no idea who those Characters are from the Comics, it is an original Movie put out in the time and certainly the summer where there are a lot of sequels. There are a lot of remakes, so I hope people are as excited as we are to see something wholly new and wholly original. That’s what I’m most excited about.

Do you hope that Guardians becomes a series of Films?

Kevin:

Well, sure, I mean, it takes place on the other side of the Galaxy, but at the same time, there are elements in it that quite directly link it into the other Marvel movies so it absolutely is a part of our Cinematic Universe. But the truth is we make every Movie one at a time so we’re putting everything we have into that first Movie. There are other stories to tell. Are ways we could take them on other Adventures? Absolutely. But we never find ourselves going Oh, this is a great idea. Let’s save this for Part 3? No if you don’t put it in here, there won’t be a Part 3. You need to put all the great ideas in the Movie at hand. So that’s where all of our energies is going right now into Guardians.

It was so fantastic to hear his perspective on Marvel films and the future of Marvel Studios. And it’s not every day that such a mega film giant agrees to take a group shot with you. He also said he loved my tee. It was such an amazing experience and I can’t wait to see what’s next for the Marvel Universe!