The man who turned around Marvel

If ONE were to think of superhero giant Marvel in terms of its latest movie Avengers Assemble, then Kevin Feige would be the company’s real-life Nick Fury – the secret-agent played by Samuel L Jackson who brings together Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and The Incredible Hulk to defend the Earth under the auspices of S.H.I.E.L.D.

“Ha-ha, there are actually a lot of people responsible for this,” says Feige, laughing off the comparison to the eye-patch wearing Fury, “and so far, I still have two eyes.”

Feige may be unwilling to boast about his own contribution, but there’s no denying that since his professional association with Marvel began 12 years ago with the first X-Men film, Marvel’s fortunes have been dramatically transformed.

To date, his movies have grossed $3.1 billion at the US box office alone, and since Marvel took the decision to set itself up as a studio in its own right seven years ago, it has become a major player in Hollywood, largely by proving that even characters with lower mainstream public profiles such as Iron Man and Thor can actually compete with the big boys like Spider-Man, Superman and Batman.

CHARACTERS

It’s something industry insiders and fans attribute to Feige’s understanding of those characters, and something Feige attributes to Marvel’s newfound ability to assert more control over them.

“We have – and continue to have – great relationships with our studio partners at Sony [where the Spider-Man films are produced] and Fox [who control the rights to the X-Men franchise],” he says, “but there were enough instances where decisions were made that we wouldn’t necessarily have supported if we were doing the film.”

Feige remains tightlipped about specific films, but it’s reasonable to assume he means the likes of Elektra, Daredevil, The Punisher and Wolverine. “If something doesn’t work, I’d rather say: ‘Yeah, we did it, we believed in it, it didn’t work. We were ready to take that responsibility.”

THE AVENGERS

They were also ready to take risks, hence the decision to use the superhero mash-up concept of The Avengers to tie together several disparate movies. “In the comic book world you would read the Iron Man books and Thor and Captain America and love their adventures, but then, every few years, there would be a big cross-over event, and some cataclysmic event would happen, and then they would all go back into their own worlds until they were needed again. I wanted to emulate that for movie-goers.”

SUPERMAN

That Feige should want to replicate this experience in cinemas is hardly surprising. He got into comics after falling in love with Richard Donner’s Superman: The Movie, which may sound like heresy for a Marvel guy (Superman is a DC character after all), but Feige did subsequently buy an X-Men comic along with his first Superman comic.

Somewhat serendipitously, his love of the original Superman movie eventually led him to X-Men again. After seeking out a film school internship with Donner’s production company, he ended up becoming a protégé of Donner’s producing partner and wife Lauren Shuler Donner, who – impressed with his encyclopedic knowledge of comics – eventually brought him on board the first X-Men film as her associate producer.”

MARVEL

It was X-Men that really helped change the landscape of comic book movies. Feige remembers with glee the early dismissive X-Men talkback on fanboy blogs such as Ain’t It Cool News. “They’d say, ‘Well, you know it’s going to be terrible. It’s the Marvel Curse.’ They don’t say that anymore.”

That’s largely because of the work Feige and his core team at Marvel now put into developing all their characters for the big screen, even the lesser-known ones. The aim, says Feige, is to transform Marvel into a movie brand that is as synonymous with quality characters and good storytelling as Pixar. “You see that Pixar logo and, even though you’ve never heard of the characters because they’re mostly original, you’re excited for what’s to come. I hope we can get to a point where that Marvel flick logo pops up and, whether you’ve read a comic or not, or whether you’ve heard of a character or not, you’re excited about what that stands for and what that can be.”