The Untold Truth Of Kevin Feige

Today, Kevin Feige is seen as the master of comic book movies, a person who can turn any obscure Marvel property into a household name. So it can be startling to discover that Feige actually wasn't much of a comic book aficionado when he grew up. He had nothing against the artform though, far from it. It just wasn't where his adolescent passions lied.

"Comics were not high on there, actually," Feige explained to Vanity Fair, referring to the content he enjoyed growing up. "It was the kind of movies based on comics — like [Richard] Donner's 'Superman.' Later, when I was 16, Tim Burton's 'Batman' came out. But also the 'Star Wars' movies, the 'Star Trek' movies, the 'Indiana Jones' movies, the 'Back to the Future' movies, the Amblin movies. ... Those were the types of movies I loved. I always say, 'I was at the movie theater on Friday, but I only occasionally went to the comic-book shop on Wednesdays — which was new comic book day.'" Feige would then go on to note that one of his first loves in the world of superheroes was "X-Men," but even this was more spurred on by the Saturday morning cartoon than anything else.

However, even though young Feige wasn't initially enamored with the world of comic books, but it wouldn't be long before comics defined his life as an adult.

Everybody needs a mentor. Nobody starts out as being a master in their field. The same is true of Kevin Feige, who, early on in his career, didn't just study under any veteran film industry person, he learned the tricks of the trade from a producer who was handling a series of superhero movies. Producer Lauren Shuler Donner, a figure responsible for shepherding films ranging from "Maverick" to "Free Willy," was a formative person for Feige, and her impact on him would reverberate for decades to come. Specifically, this was because Donner was initially the person in charge of producing the "X-Men" movies, and Feige worked right alongside her as Donner broke new ground for comic book movies.

"I started writing notes on the early drafts of X-Men that came in," Feige would later recall according to We Minored in Film, "and because Lauren is an amazing mentor and is so gracious, she would read the notes. Eventually, she started saying, 'Hey, come into the office and sit with me.' I would be sitting with Tom DeSanto, who's the producer of 'X-Men,' and Bryan Singer, who was the newly hired director, and I just started to become a part of that creative team." From there, Feige polished up the creative skills that he would later use at Marvel Studios. It's true that everybody needs a mentor, but few get one as helpful and encouraging as Feige did with Lauren Shuler Donner.

Just a few years into running Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige was hit with massive news. The company, as well as everything under the Marvel umbrella, had been bought by Disney. In other words, the 2009 transaction put this comic book entity under the ownership of the Mouse House. In the wake of this development, longtime superhero fans grew concerned that Marvel's storylines would become diluted under Disney ownership. Would Disney be ruining Marvel just as the company's cinematic universe was beginning to get off the ground?

Well, more than a decade after Disney ponied up the cash for Marvel, Feige has nothing but positive things to say about this media company union. "It was the greatest thing that ever happened to us," Feige explained to ComicBook.com, adding, "If Disney hadn't bought us, you wouldn't have seen the movies we've made since then. For sure. I just don't think it would have been possible." Similarly, websites like D23 have chronicled quotes from Feige talking about what a boon Disney+ has been for the franchise, another positive that wouldn't have been possible if another company had bought up Marvel. Rather than restricting Marvel's opportunities, Disney ownership seems to have opened up new doors for Feige and other higher-up's at the company.

Over time, Marvel Studios has hired quite the eclectic group of filmmakers to helm individual titles in its cinematic universe. Everyone from Cate Shortland to Jon Favreau has worked behind the camera on MCU projects. Considering the frequently unorthodox choices for filmmakers, it can lead you to wonder how exactly Feige chooses directors for individual movies or showrunners for Disney+ films.

Apparently, if a filmmaker wants to be considered by Marvel, the decision hinges on their previous works. "Do something that gets on our radar," Feige said to the New York Film Academy about the criteria for filmmakers grabbing his attention. "And it doesn't have to be a big giant movie. It can be a clever show."

Of course, that's not all that's involved with the process. After getting the big man's attention, then it's time to put down the camera and step inside an office for some facetime with Feige. As he put it, "Then we have a lot of meetings and see if we're on the same page creatively. See if you know that this is somebody we can spend day in and day out with for the next three years, which is important. But it really comes down to 'do something that makes a mark regardless of the scope of the size.' And that seems to showcase how clever you can be." 

Returning to this criteria for choosing Marvel Studios filmmakers has proven quite handy for Feige and the immensely successful Marvel Cinematic Universe, leading to strong collaborations with the likes of Ryan Coogler, Taika Waititi, Jac Schaeffer, and Michael Waldron.

The expansive cast of the Marvel Universe is made up of all kinds of oddballs and weirdos, ranging from synthezoids to raccoons to frozen super soldiers. But when creating classic Marvel comics, people like Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were always conscious to balance out all the strangeness with discernible humanity. That's been a mixture the MCU has worked hard to retain, with much of that fusion coming from Feige's own insistence on what kind of qualities should be apparent in Marvel Cinematic Universe characters.

In 2018, Feige told NPR that the process of breaking down the stories of individual Marvel projects involves looking at the most stylized characters in each script and then trying "to find the humanity in them." As he went on to explain, "A lot of that is right there in the comics to pull from. But we start to find ourselves identifying with each one that we're making at the time because that's how we believe the audience will as well. .. We try to instill a little bit of ourselves in all of them, in the hopes that the audience will then see themselves on the screen." 

As a result of emphasizing this quality, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has produced a boatload of characters that moviegoers can identify with, even when they're fighting gods and aliens ... or even if they're gods and aliens themselves.

In the fall of 2019, the media landscape went into a frenzy over a series of comments Martin Scorsese made about the MCU. Specifically, Scorsese had said the Marvel movies were "not cinema" and were more akin to "theme parks" than anything else. He added that the movies were hogging up space both in theaters and the general pop culture discourse, stealing the spotlight from what he perceived as "actual films." It was a series of opinions that drew a wide range of responses, including some comments from Kevin Feige.

"I think that's not true. I think it's unfortunate," Feige said (per The Hollywood Reporter) about the central thesis of Scorsese's comments. "I think myself and everyone who works on these movies loves cinema, loves movies, loves going to the movies, loves to watch a communal experience in a movie theater full of people." However, Feige would go on to note that he was fine with Scorsese having his own thoughts about modern films. "Everybody is entitled to their opinion," Feige emphasized. "Everyone is entitled to repeat that opinion. Everyone is entitled to write op-eds about that opinion, and I look forward to what will happen next. But in the meantime, we're going to keep making movies."