Marvel Chief Kevin Feige Doesn’t Think People Want Superhero Movies

Marvel Studios President and Chief Creative Officer Kevin Feige doesn’t think much of superhero movies, to be honest.

That might seem odd, coming from the producer primarily responsible for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the most commercially successful film franchise of all time.

While there were a number of successful comic book movies prior to the advent of the MCU, like the Tim Burton Batman (1989) and Bryan Singer’s X-Men (2000), the behemoth box office and cultural imprint of Feige’s shared universe of Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), and all the rest, has far outstripped them.

Related: Kevin Feige Putting “ Insane Amount of Pressure” on ‘The Fantastic Four,’ ‘Deadpool & Wolverine,’ Report

Of course, in the last few years, the MCU has finally begun to stumble. After the Infinity Saga culminated in Avengers: Endgame (2019), audience attention has wandered, with movies like Thor: Love and Thunder (2022), Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023), and The Marvels (2023) pulling in progressively lower and lower grosses and Rotten Tomato scores.

Kevin Feige has put a brave face on things, claiming that the diminishing returns of the MCU are good—actually, they’re totally fine. In fact, he relishes having to work back up to the top, saying, “I’m much more comfortable being the underdog. I prefer being able to surprise and exceed expectations. So it does seem like the last year, which has not been ideal, has set us up well for that.”

Currently, Marvel Studios (and, by extension, The Walt Disney Company) is betting on Deadpool & Wolverine, the nostalgia-laden reunion of Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman as the title characters, to save the franchise.

If the MCU will continue on with the same kind of cultural relevance it has had since Iron Man (2008), it’s up to that movie, Captain America: Brave New World, and The Fantastic Four to blow people away and dispel the idea of “superhero fatigue.”

On the other hand, Kevin Feige can just come right out and say that he doesn’t really think that superhero movies are all that important. In a recent Q&A with Deadline as part of the ramp-up to San Diego Comic-Con, Feige fielded a question about a potential superhero renaissance and gave a pretty interesting answer:

“I’ve never been a big believer in superhero being a genre in and of itself. We made films that are based in graphic narrative format originally, but we make different types of movies, and I think the answer to that question is the same answer to movies in general: making engaging, entertaining films that have to be experienced in a theater with a crowd and is worth people getting into their cars and making the trip.”

Kevin Feige’s answer seems to be his way of digging out of the superhero fatigue hole, basically by claiming that Marvel doesn’t really make those kinds of movies. This is not dissimilar from previous attempts to market, say, Captain America: Civil War (2016) as a 1970s-style spy thriller or She-Hulk: Attorney at Law as a goofy meta-comedy rather than as comic book adaptations, but it is a particularly overt tactic.

Related: ‘Hulk’ Rages Against Disney CEO Bob Iger, Won’t Be Back to MCU

The Marvel chief also seems to be keeping the same company line as his boss, Disney CEO Bob Iger, in pushing people back into theaters by reducing the studio’s output in favor of quality products (i.e., making good movies). Kevin Feige continued, saying:

“[P]eople seem very excited to see Deadpool and Wolverine onscreen. I think the experience that it’s going to give to people and hopefully encourage people to go see it again and again, that’s our job. That’s our job at Marvel, that’s our job as the 100-year old Hollywood industry — to remind people that we have the best storytellers and can provide the best entertainment in the world. As we keep doing that in ways that engage, excite and grab onto the imagination and the psyche of the audience, that’s all we ever wanted to do, that’s all we tried to do. I think we have to keep evolving and expanding the ways we do that.”

If you cut through the corporate speak, Kevin Feige is ultimately saying that people just want to watch good entertainment, which, fair enough. If that doesn’t involve superheroes, it sounds like he’s fine with it.

Do you think the MCU makes superhero movies?