Marvel Female Led Movie Possible But It’s A Chess Match, Says Feige

Guardians of the Galaxy‘s Gamora and The Avenger‘s Natasha Romanov prove that Marvel has its fair share of strong female characters. However, they’ve only been featured as part of a team and there are even more strong female characters that remain untouched from the comic book universe. Could we eventually see a solo film featuring one of them? Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige shared his thoughts in a recent in a recent interview.

Comic Book Resources noted that there’s a “groundswell of demand” for a female lead in a Marvel movie during a lengthy interview with the man who has shepherded the movie universe since the original Iron Man film.

In response, Feige said, “I think you’re right about that, and I think it comes down to timing, which is what I’ve sort of always said, and it comes down to us being able to tell the right story.

“I very much believe in doing it,” he added. “I very much believe that it’s unfair to say, ‘People don’t want to see movies with female heroes,’ then list five movies that were not very good, therefore, people didn’t go to the movies because they weren’t good movies, versus [because] they were female leads. And they don’t mention ‘Hunger Games,’ ‘Frozen,’ ‘Divergent.’ You can go back to ‘Kill Bill’ or ‘Aliens.’ These are all female-led movies. It can certainly be done.”

So, Feige is in agreement that a female can lead a movie, but a rumored slate of upcoming Marvel movies adds Doctor Strange, Black Panther, and the already announced Ant-Man, but no female led movies. So what’s going on?

“I hope we do it sooner rather than later. But we find ourselves in the very strange position of managing more franchises than most people have — which is a very, very good thing and we don’t take for granted, but is a challenging thing,” Feige explained.

“You may notice from those release dates, we have three for 2017. And that’s because just the timing worked on what was sort of gearing up. But it does mean you have to put one franchise on hold for three or four years in order to introduce a new one? I don’t know. Those are the kinds of chess matches we’re playing right now.”

Marvel’s problem with a female led movie may also be due to the fact that there are few female led comic books, as well. Most are part of teams.

Much was made of the Thor series switching the traditional male role to a female role but the current line-up of solo female comics includes Captain Marvel, Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk, Elektra, Black Widow, and Scarlet. There’s also an all-female team in The Fearless Defenders and one of the X-Men books is all female as well.

Of those, a Captain Marvel movie would make the most sense for a new character since she fits in with the expanding universe established by Guardians of the Galaxy.

[Image via Marvel]

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