Marvel CEO Kevin Feige discusses Iron Man 4, Ultron, Guadians of the Galaxy and more on the Chris Hardwick Nerdist podcast, as a guest to promote Marvel's Thor: The Dark World.
Kevin Feige on if Marvel Studios views Guardians of the Galaxy as a risk?
"I don't think it's going out on a limb anymore than the first Iron Man was. Frankly, it's less because the entire fate of the studio hinged on that...that and Incredible Hulk. And at the time, the Incredible Hulk felt like, ok, everyone knows the Hulk, [he's] the popular character, it's this Iron Man thing that's the risk."
On why some superhero movies are better than others.
"I think there are a million reasons but what we [at Marvel Studios] distilled it down to was 'a lack of confidence in the underlying source material.' And that the source material itself is the selling point, being the most interesting thing about it. So when you look at the cast of most of our movies, they're not the hottest marquee star of the day. They are now in the sequels because if the movie works, Robert Downey Jr. is now the biggest star in the world."
On the concept of trilogies. Feige says the idea was that there was always going to be more Iron Man movies after Iron Man 3.
"Somebody coined online the term threequel-itis. And I think you can look at a few of our movies, the Marvel movies, as having threequel-itis [namely] Spider-Man 3, X-Men 3 and there are a million reasons for all of that but I wanted to avoid that on Iron Man 3. And I thought we had a secret weapon which was The Avengers coming between Iron Man 2 and Iron Man 3. Never mind how successful The Avengers was, we couldn't have predicted that, it would be foolish to predict that level of success. But I thought it would be good because it would be a bit of a palate cleanser between Iron Man 2 and Iron Man 3 and allow you to not just go, 'Oh, well here's the culmination of a trilogy. And if we're culminating a trilogy then these are the types of things that happen when you culminate a trilogy. Maybe it's the last one, maybe it's...' We knew it wouldn't be the last one and [with] Avengers, it was really a Part Four. And if you look at some successful Part Fours, sometimes they're better than threes because they're liberated in a sense from [having to] complete a beginning, middle and end. And they do, 'Lets go find whales in San Francisco in 1986.'"
On Marvel Comics continuity and Marvel Cinematic Universe continuity and having Ultron be created by someone other than Henry Pym aka Ant-Man.
"It's interesting because now, we're in our 10th or 11th or 12th movie within the MCU, Marvel Cinematic Universe continuity, and it is approaching a time where we're saying, 'In the comics, [the characters] had been doing certain things at this point which is why they had this person do this thing'. If we did that now, it wouldn't make any sense because we've done enough things that are unique in these other movies that we need to now start being true, not just to the comic continuity; which again, we've never [100%] been true to - that's always been the inspiration. Now we have to be true to our own continuity. So certainly in the case of Ultron, there are a few characters in the franchise who it would make sense to have been involved in that creation [rather] than introducing a new character out of nowhere to come and do it. And Edgar [Wright] already has certain ideas in place for the [Ant-Man] characters, going back to Comic-Con 2006 that we wanted to maintain."
"I don't think it's going out on a limb anymore than the first Iron Man was. Frankly, it's less because the entire fate of the studio hinged on that...that and Incredible Hulk. And at the time, the Incredible Hulk felt like, ok, everyone knows the Hulk, [he's] the popular character, it's this Iron Man thing that's the risk."
On why some superhero movies are better than others.
"I think there are a million reasons but what we [at Marvel Studios] distilled it down to was 'a lack of confidence in the underlying source material.' And that the source material itself is the selling point, being the most interesting thing about it. So when you look at the cast of most of our movies, they're not the hottest marquee star of the day. They are now in the sequels because if the movie works, Robert Downey Jr. is now the biggest star in the world."
On the concept of trilogies. Feige says the idea was that there was always going to be more Iron Man movies after Iron Man 3.
"Somebody coined online the term threequel-itis. And I think you can look at a few of our movies, the Marvel movies, as having threequel-itis [namely] Spider-Man 3, X-Men 3 and there are a million reasons for all of that but I wanted to avoid that on Iron Man 3. And I thought we had a secret weapon which was The Avengers coming between Iron Man 2 and Iron Man 3. Never mind how successful The Avengers was, we couldn't have predicted that, it would be foolish to predict that level of success. But I thought it would be good because it would be a bit of a palate cleanser between Iron Man 2 and Iron Man 3 and allow you to not just go, 'Oh, well here's the culmination of a trilogy. And if we're culminating a trilogy then these are the types of things that happen when you culminate a trilogy. Maybe it's the last one, maybe it's...' We knew it wouldn't be the last one and [with] Avengers, it was really a Part Four. And if you look at some successful Part Fours, sometimes they're better than threes because they're liberated in a sense from [having to] complete a beginning, middle and end. And they do, 'Lets go find whales in San Francisco in 1986.'"
On Marvel Comics continuity and Marvel Cinematic Universe continuity and having Ultron be created by someone other than Henry Pym aka Ant-Man.
"It's interesting because now, we're in our 10th or 11th or 12th movie within the MCU, Marvel Cinematic Universe continuity, and it is approaching a time where we're saying, 'In the comics, [the characters] had been doing certain things at this point which is why they had this person do this thing'. If we did that now, it wouldn't make any sense because we've done enough things that are unique in these other movies that we need to now start being true, not just to the comic continuity; which again, we've never [100%] been true to - that's always been the inspiration. Now we have to be true to our own continuity. So certainly in the case of Ultron, there are a few characters in the franchise who it would make sense to have been involved in that creation [rather] than introducing a new character out of nowhere to come and do it. And Edgar [Wright] already has certain ideas in place for the [Ant-Man] characters, going back to Comic-Con 2006 that we wanted to maintain."
Source: ComicBookMovie
