From the new book about the formation of Marvel Studios.
PRE-MCU
>Marvel’s 90s bankruptcy battles were nuts. At one point, Ike Perlmutter and Avi Arad sprinted through the streets of Manhattan to crash a meeting with their pitch to save Marvel.
>Kevin Feige applied to USC film school six times before he was accepted. He and Geoff Johns were friends and junior staffers for Lauren Shuler-Donner. The first time Feige went to Comic-Con, he borrowed Johns’ car.
>Shuler-Donner believes studying under her and Laura Ziskin gave Feige a more "intuitive, empathetic" style than most film executives. Pressed for one of Feige’s shortcomings, Shuler-Donner allowed that "neatness is not his forte."
>Bryan Singer had never heard of the X-Men when he was approached to direct. Michael Jackson lobbied for the role of Professor X.
>In Spider-Man 4, John Malkovich would have played Vulture, and Anne Hathaway was Felicia Hardy, as previously reported. Angelina Jolie was tapped for Vulturess, who would be Vulture’s daughter. Sam Raimi ultimately left because he couldn’t see how to turn profits on a film that could cost nearly $400m.
>Before Iron Man, Jon Favreau and Avi Arad kicked around a comedic take on Captain America, an Elf-style journey of a squeaky clean 1940s soldier adjusting to the modern world.
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PHASE 1
>The Mandarin was the original secret third act villain of Iron Man, but was cut after X-Men 3 and Spider-Man 3 were criticized for having too many villains.
>The final scene written for the film (Stark tricking Stane into icing his armor) was turned in minutes before the 2007 WGA strike.
>The film’s final explosion was so large, it accidentally fried $180k worth of lights and drew the attention of the LAPD.
>The Norton VS. Marvel squabbles were mostly about tone: Norton wanted a longer ponderous movie, Marvel wanted a shorter adventure movie. The Captain America deleted scene was Norton’s original opening for the movie, but Marvel found it too dour.
>Feige has always delegated day-to-day to creative producers, who journey with the film from development to post-production. The first creative producers were Jeremy Latcham (Iron Man) and Stephen Broussard (Incredible Hulk).
>Don Cheadle was at his kid’s birthday party when a Marvel executive called, giving him an hour to decide whether to be War Machine. When he said he was in the middle of laser tag, the executive replied, "Oh, take two hours then.”
>The infamous Marvel Creative Committee was formed by Dan Buckley, Joe Quesada, Brian Michael Bendis, Louis D’Esposito, Kevin Feige and Alan Fine. The MCC’s most unpopular decisions and toxic feedback culture came from Fine, who was Perlmutter’s attack dog. “Screaming matches” were had because the MCC wanted Captain America to be set in the modern day.
>Even before they cast Tom Hiddleston, Marvel knew they wanted Loki to be the villain of The Avengers. Thor screenwriter Zack Stentz: “They literally said, ‘If you fail at everything else, please just give us a villain as good as Magneto in Loki.’”
>Norton wanted a longer ponderous movie
Norton was right, tbh.
>Chris Evans turned down Captain America twice, even after Marvel offered him the role without an audition. Robert Downey Jr. was enlisted to call Evans and convince him.
>Whedon chose the Chitauri for The Avengers because he didn’t want an alien army with complicated baggage, like the Kree or Skrulls.
>Whedon only intended Thanos to be a quick bit of fanservice, and Marvel approved the cameo without any thought or planning on how that would shape the MCU.
>Perlmutter resisted even Black Widow being an Avenger: he wanted the team to be all men. Marvel corporate believed the sweet spot to move action figures was white men in their 30s.
>The Runaways movie was cancelled because it wasn’t "toyetic" enough.
>Marvel corporate believed the sweet spot to move action figures was white men in their 30s.
Are they wrong?
PHASE 2
>As Marvel Studios entered Phase Two, the Creative Committee became a production chokepoint, insisting on reading all scripts but taking longer than ever to respond to them, and coalesced around a single idea: the Marvel Cinematic Universe should exist to sell merchandise.
>When Rebecca Hall signed for Iron Man 3, it was explicitly to play the film’s villain. The MCC forced Shane Black to change this due to toy sale concerns. For the same reasons, Hela was replaced as the villain of Thor 2.
>Marvel Studios and Marvel Television were housed on opposite ends of Disney’s Burbank headquarters. Marvel Studios regarded TV spinoffs as "forced synergy." When Blade, Daredevil, Luke Cage, and Ghost Rider reverted back to Marvel, Feige wanted to use them, but the MCC assigned them to Television, over Feige's objections.
>ABC was developing a Jessica Jones show which fell apart because the network wanted to retool the show to focus on Carol Danvers, who was originally a supporting character.
>Nicole Perlman wrote the first draft of Guardians of the Galaxy and initially had Nova as the lead character, but it was decided a more roguish figure was needed. Star-Lord’s mixtape was her idea, which the MCC opposed. Otherwise, they didn’t contribute much feedback because they believed GOTG would inevitably fail and they could use its flop to control Feige.
>Edgar Wright first pitched Ant-Man all the way back in 2001, four years before Marvel Studios even existed. Wright was hired in 2006, but production was never an urgent priority for either party. Each time it was pushed back, the culture inside Marvel Studios changed, reconceiving how the film would serve the MCU.
>The MCC noted the hell out of Ant-Man, shoehorning in MCU references, which Wright and Cornish struggled to make work. To nudge things forward, Marvel Studios hired an in-house writer to do a rewrite, but it backfired. Wright was so shocked, he no longer believed Marvel operated as good faith collaborators and left the film.
>Patrick Wilson was originally Yellowjacket. The Adam McKay/Paul Rudd rewrite expanded Hope’s role in part because Evangeline Lilly hadn’t actually signed her contract. After Wright left, she negotiated for a larger part.
>Edgar Wright wanted to make an Ant-Man movie, but he wanted it to reflect his vision, not the larger needs of the MCU—so much so, he walked away from his own film. It marks a significant “What If . . . ?” moment in the history of Marvel Studios: If Wright had filmed his Ant-Man script in the early years of Marvel, he likely would have been able to make it his way, and he might have even shifted the trajectory of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, infusing it with his own sensibility and humor. He just waited too long.
>>The MCC noted the hell out of Ant-Man,
I suspected it, Bendis was part of it and he dislikes Scott Lang and killed him off in the comics while Wright wanted to make a movie about him, it's kinda funny to imagine how things went between the two.
Now I'm imagine Bendis and the committee meeting Wright and Bendis seething hard at him for daring to try and use Scott Lang, while Wright goes 'who tf is this?'
I imagine Wright going like
>Why did you kill Scott?
>He should be alive by the time the movie comes out
And Bendis just seething because he knows Marvel would revive him for synergy
>If Wright had filmed his Ant-Man script in the early years of Marvel, he likely would have been able to make it his way, and he might have even shifted the trajectory of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, infusing it with his own sensibility and humor. He just waited too long.
The Wright MCU in place of the Whedon MCU would be fascinating.
>The MCC noted the hell out of Ant-Man
knew it was them. wright would make a great xmen film i hope he and marvel could reconcile one day
I don't see that happening. Most autuers are done with superhero films. Back in the day you even had Quentin Tarantino, Nicolas Refn, James Cameron, etc interested in doing films on Marvel/DC characters.
matt reeves is an auteur imo but i might be pushing it. i think if u give them enough control they could be interested. also im sure cameron wouldnt mind doing a spiderman film if he wasnt busy with avatar
WB almost fricked up with Reeves and he was prepared to leave at least twice (first from Toby Emmerich meddling and 2nd from them trying to tie in The Batman with James Gunn's DC)
didnt even know that lol i still have hope that the dcu is gonna be loose enough to allow directors to do what they want but even if not theres still the elseworlds thing. a wright flash film would be great but thats obviously not gonna happen anytime soon
PHASE THREE
>The MCC wanted to cut Tony Stark from Civil War. They also pushed for the airport fight to be Avengers VS. supersoldiers. Iger called Perlmutter to try and smooth things over, overriding Ike on greenlighting Black Panther and Captain Marvel. The production grew more contentious and the Russos threatened to quit. Finally, when Perlmutter decided to fire Feige, Iger cut the strings, freeing Feige. The MCC was dead.
>Sony’s contract with Marvel specified that after the release of a Spider-Man movie, the studio had to start production of the next one within three years and nine months, and get it into theaters within five years and nine months. Otherwise, the Spider-Man movie rights would revert to Marvel.
>Captain Marvel was a period piece to avoid figuring out how Carol would interact with SHIELD and the Avengers. They considered setting it in the 60s and 80s. The same firm that de-aged Patrick Stewart in X-Men 3 de-aged Samuel L. Jackson. The technology itself hasn’t actually evolved much: the artists are just more skilled.
>As they prepared to expand into television, Feige established the Marvel Studios Parliament, the top creative producers who have been with the company the longest. (They're basically Feige's direct reports.) Members: Stephen Broussard, Eric Carroll, Nate Moore, Jonathan Schwartz, Trinh Tran, and Brad Winderbaum.
>While filming Avengers: Endgame, the on-set plan was to have Black Panther, Captain Marvel, and Spider-Man be the three new faces of the MCU. It didn’t work out well: Marvel temporarily lost the rights to Spider-Man, Chadwick Boseman passed, and Brie Larson became disillusioned about working with Marvel due to years of internet harassment campaigns.
>internet harassment campaigns
What does that even mean for someone as famous as Brie Larson?
How they frick would they do civil war with no ironman
I still feel like we didn't even need to do Civil War at all. We skipped over a lot of shit to rush to modern deconstructionism garbage.
the same contrived, fricked up way they did Secret Invasion, I guess
PHASE FOUR
>Marvel Studios was so determined to minimize any connection with Marvel Television that Eternals wasn't allowed take place in Hawaii so as to not risk reminding audiences of Inhumans.
>After Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Gunn planned on sticking around the MCU to flesh out its cosmic side. But after being fired and rehired, he made clear his future loyalties would be with DC.
>For Disney Investor Day 2020, Feige and Kathleen Kennedy were pressured into announcing projects “nowhere near ready,” namely Armor Wars and Fantastic Four. "The event wrongfooted Marvel: The studio struggled to deliver on all the promises it made during that presentation."
>Spider-Man: No Way Home basically never had a finished screenplay because so many elements were in flux. Gwen Stacy, Mary Jane Watson, and Sally Field’s Aunt May were all in various drafts. Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield weren’t signed until two months into filming.
>Marvel Studios assigned junior executives to work on their initial TV series. This freed up the writers/directors from bothering Feige and the Parliament with creative minutiae, but also meant Feige didn’t perform much oversight over the TV shows. The shows were built more like movies: the head writers delivered scripts, but the director ultimately called the shots on the production. Kate Herron had a mini-room reworking Waldron’s Loki scripts.
>Victoria Alonso joined Marvel during Iron Man, becoming the #3 executive in the company, responsible for VFX and post-production. In 2019, when Feige became head of Marvel Entertainment, he immediately promoted Alonso, but a rift began developing.
>Feige was incensed after Alonso criticized CEO Bob Chapek for not denouncing Florida’s "Don’t Say Gay" bill, breaking Feige’s "don’t air dirty laundry in public" rule. Feige speculated if she had "outgrown" her role.
>One of the only times Alonso refused a request from the higher-ups was removing LGBTQ references in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania for release in certain countries. Louis D’Esposito hired a VFX team behind her back, which she considered a profound betrayal. When Disney fired Alonso this year, nobody from Marvel Studios intervened.
>Feige places a great deal of pride on the MCU’s Rotten Tomatoes scores, displaying the “Certified Fresh” plaques in Marvel Studios.
>Following Black Bolt's surprise cameo in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, everyone in MCU history appears to be on Feige’s call list, except for two people: Edward Norton and Joss Whedon.
Interesting how none of the cast from the first 2 Avengers movies have said zilch about Whedon after he got cancelled.
See:
>Feige’s "don’t air dirty laundry in public" rule
I wouldn't be too surprised if they did have some stories, but Feige told them not to say anything. Then again, Whedon is apparently very on-and-off when it comes to his more questionable behaviour, so maybe they don't actually have all that much to say
>Marvel’s creative process is they shoot the film, Kevin Feige reviews the footage, and they have additional photography based on his notes. The only director who didn’t do this was Ryan Coogler.
>Feige wanted to do three movies and two series per year, but Bob Chapek demanded more content to prop up Disney+. Because of this, Feige wasn’t able to review all the footage from all the projects and outside producers that weren’t trained in the Marvel method had to be brought in to handle certain projects, leading to quality decline.
>Covid, Bob Chapek’s business model, the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes and external factors like Chadwick Boseman’s passing all hurt the flow of the Multiverse Saga.
>WandaVision was filmed without an ending due to the production overhaul of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness after Scott Derrickson left and Sam Raimi came in.
>The Falcon and the Winter Soldier was heavily reshot to change the original storyline featuring a pandemic due to Covid.
>Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was supposed to set up a “Cooglerverse” within the MCU with spinoffs for Ironheart, Okoye, the Dora Milaje and the kingdom of Wakanda.
>Marvel was blindsided by Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania flopping. Internal feedback and test screenings were very positive, and they thought they had a hit.
>On the other hand, Secret Invasion had a troubled production and had to be almost entirely reshot, so Marvel was prepared for it to flop.
>Fantastic Four and X-Men are the top priorities, Wonder Man and Vision Quest may be scrapped.
>Feige is hard at work to fix things: Content output has been reduced, upcoming projects are being more extensively tested, the production method for the TV shows is being overhauled, and continuity more carefully maintained.
The Fantastic Four are the only ones who can save us.
>RDJ knew how important Iron Man was to Marvel and was known to pull his weight around to help actors get better deals and push for specific storylines he felt attached to. This is one of the reasons why Perlmutter attempted to remove him from Captain America: Civil War, and also why Iron Man 4 never happened despite RDJ being interested and even recommending Mel Gibson to direct.
>After being asked to give notes on Spider-Man: Homecoming and Captain Marvel, James Gunn reportedly claimed he was the "new Joss Whedon" AKA Marvel's creative figurehead, something which Feige disputed. Gunn has recently claimed to have worked on nearly all Phase 3 projects.
>Eternals was an attempt to make an arthouse superhero film. After reviewing the footage, Feige reportedly feared it wouldn't work and recommended reshoots to add more action and humor, but Chloe Zhao's Oscar win midway through production emboldened Marvel to not interfere with her vision. Alas, the movie flopped both critically and commercially.
>Feige is aware that the Multiverse Saga isn't running as smoothly as the Infinity Saga due to a series of factors including Covid, the Disney+ content overload, and the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. The idea is to review all projects to make the connections tighter and the buildup more dynamic.
>Spider-Man, Doctor Strange and Ant-Man are being positioned as the new leads of the Multiverse Saga, along with legacy characters such as Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man, Hugh Jackman's Wolverine and Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool.
>Feige's plans to soft-reboot the MCU after the Multiverse Saga, establishing a new continuity that includes the Fantastic Four and the X-Men and axes all characters/storylines that haven't worked.
>Spider-Man, Doctor Strange and Ant-Man
>>Ant-Man
ANT-CHADS, IT'S NOT OVER YET
Of course it's not, Kang has beef with the Pym family after Janet cucked him, Hank blew up his empire with ants, and Janet shot him into a wormhole.
*Hope shot him
No joke, I feel the are taking inspiration from this arc where Doctor Doom killed Cassie and Scott swore revenge. It's the only arc where Scott had a feud with a big profile villain, only that instead of Doom is Kang.
>even recommending Mel Gibson to direct Iron Man 4.
Could you imagine that? I remember when DC wanted Mel to direct Suicide Squad 2.
That probably fell through because Mel publically called Batman v Superman "a piece of shit"
>the Marvel Cinematic Universe should exist to sell merchandise.
>Marvel corporate believed the sweet spot to move action figures was white men in their 30s.
Clearly they don't believe this anymore. What happened?
>Feige places a great deal of pride on the MCU’s Rotten Tomatoes scores, displaying the “Certified Fresh” plaques in Marvel Studios.
Does he display the audience scores too?
Kids dont play with action figures and collectors are happy with alternate costumes, I guess.
>studying under her and Laura Ziskin gave Feige a more "intuitive, empathetic" style
Translation: remove all female sex appeal.
>From the new book about the formation of Marvel Studios.
No wonder it's mostly fellating fiege the whole way through
rdj holding political power in mcu
- kills him off in endgame to show him who's boss
-mcu fails after the fact
who really won?