Over the past decade, Kevin Feige has led Marvel Studios to phenomenal success, with the Marvel Cinematic Universe becoming the highest-grossing movie franchise in history with over $13 billion in box office receipts. This success has prompted several other attempts at shared universes, although the likes of Warner’s DC Extended Universe and Universal Dark Universe have not yet managed to reach the same kind of critical and commercial heights.
During an interview with Vanity Fair, Feige was asked what advice he’d give to those looking to build their own universes, responding that:
“The only advice, and I’ve sort of said this already today, is don’t worry about the universe. Worry about the movie. We never set out to build a universe. We set out to make a great Iron Man movie, a Hulk movie, a Thor movie and then be able to do what, at the time, nobody else was doing: put them together… Make that movie work. The notion of sitting down going, ‘Let’s build a cinematic universe,’ might be a little off. Let’s sit down and make a great movie and if people are interested in that, there are ways and ideas to tie them together going forward.”
“Bring that experience that hardcore comic readers have had for decades of Spider-Man swinging into the Fantastic Four headquarters, or for Hulk to suddenly come rampaging through the pages of an Iron Man comic,” Feige continued. “We thought it would be fun for film goers to get that same—on a much bigger canvas—rush, because there is something just inherently great about that: seeing character’s worlds collide with one another… That’s what is so amazing every day on the set of Infinity War. These characters have no business being in the same room together. It’s ridiculous. Everyone within Marvel Studios just knows the individual movie trumps the overall picture. If there’s a better idea for a movie—if we were going to plant a seed in this movie that was going to be awesome and pay off three movies later, but that seed is not working and that seed is screwing up the movie, good bye. We’ll do something else later.”
Sage advice from Feige, and something that other studios could definitely take note of moving forward…
An unprecedented cinematic journey ten years in the making and spanning the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel Studios’ “Avengers: Infinity War” brings to the screen the ultimate, deadliest showdown of all time. The Avengers and their Super Hero allies must be willing to sacrifice all in an attempt to defeat the powerful Thanos before his blitz of devastation and ruin puts an end to the universe.
Avengers: Infinity War opens on April 27th 2018 in the UK and May 4th 2018 in the US and will feature an all-star cast including Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), Chris Evans (Captain America), Mark Ruffalo (Hulk), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye), Chadwick Boseman (Black Panther), Tom Holland (Spider-Man), Sebastian Stan (Winter Soldier), Anthony Mackie (Falcon), Paul Rudd (Ant-Man), Paul Bettany (Vision), Elizabeth Olsen (Scarlet Witch), Don Cheadle (War Machine), Josh Brolin (Thanos), Benedict Cumberbatch (Doctor Strange), Benedict Wong (Wong), Chris Pratt (Star-Lord), Zoe Saldana (Gamora), Dave Bautista (Drax), Bradley Cooper (Rocket), Sean Gunn (Rocket, Kraglin), Vin Diesel (Groot), Karen Gillan (Nebula), Pom Klementieff (Mantis), Tessa Thompson (Valkyrie), Tom Hiddleston (Loki), Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury), Cobie Smulders (Maria Hill), Benicio Del Toro (The Collector), Danai Gurira (Okoye), Winston Duke (M’Baku) and Peter Dinklage and Terry Notary in as-yet-unrevealed roles.
Originally published December 8, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
