Kevin Feige: In New Interview Marvel President Dishes on ‘Guardians,’ ‘Ant-Man’ & Comic-Con
Kevin Feige – head honcho of Marvel Studios – sat down with Jeremy Smith of Aint It Cool News recently and gave an insightful interview on Marvel’s latest offering, Guardians of the Galaxy, the Ant-Man director controversy, and the inside scoop from Comic-Con.
On Guardians, Smith said that he’d heard that director James Gunn got excited for the film after seeing a treatment by Brian Lynch, and then the next draft of the script he received wasn’t by Lynch and wasn’t as good as the one Lynch had done. Director Gunn went off and wrote his own treatment. Smith asked Kevin Feige what would have happened if Marvel didn’t like that treatment.
“We would have brought in another writer to keep working. I’ll say a few things: one, the reason we’re here is because of the draft Nicole Perlman, who has credit on this film, wrote when she was part of our writers program. That’s what moved us along, but there were things that we wanted to change. That’s why Brian Lynch and I believe another writer came on board and did a version.”
Kevin Feige went on to say that though a number of writers worked on Guardians of the Galaxy, the film is 100 percent James Gunn. Feige said the “bones of the film” are what Nicole Perlman brought to it, but the soul of the film is all Gunn.
Smith then asked Kevin if Marvel would ever consider giving a director on any of its films final cut.
“No. We’d never give a director final cut, just as a matter of policy. It’s not about me having final cut. It’s about Marvel having final cut.”
Feige then spoke about how Marvel was almost in bankruptcy in the late 90s and early 2000s, before the success of the X-Men, Fantastic 4 and Spider-Man films. And then Marvel took a look at the landscape and said “we’re not making any money off these movies. Let’s become our own studio.”
Kevin said the whole purpose of Marvel becoming its own studio was so it could make it’s own decisions. That said, Feige said he likes the independent thinkers they’ve hired as directors.
Smith then asked about the Ant-Man controversy. After working for eight years on the film, fan-favorite director Edgar Wright and Marvel went their separate ways.
“Edgar and I sat down and said, ‘Clearly, this isn’t working. We’ll put out a joint statement saying it’s ‘creative differences’ because it is. Nobody will believe us because that’s what everyone says when there’s a problem, but that really is the truth.’ And I said, ‘Edgar, don’t worry one way or the other. Everyone will just think it’s the evil studio.’ Which is now the case.”
When asked about “how much” and “what” you reveal as a studio at Comic-Con, Feige said,
“We reveal what’s ready to reveal. It’s that mundane. ‘Do we have footage ready?’ Last year, I didn’t know we were going to show the Guardians clip until a week or so before, because we just happened to cut together something that we liked. I didnt’ know that Mark Ruffalo was going to come out and announce himself as Bruce Banner in front of all the Avengers until the day before – because that’s when his contract was signed.”
It sounds like Marvel is in good hands with Kevin Feige. Comic Book.com says that the overwhelming majority of all reviews for Marvel’s latest film, Guardians of the Galaxy, are extremely positive. That film opens tomorrow, August 1st.
