What is Kevin Fiege's secret?

[batman1]

He keeps popping out these great movies!! I don't understand how he keeps doing it. he has Marvel well planned. That universe is well put together. Well done on Spiderman. Is he just built to do superhero movies? Idk what he did before all of this. But he is the perfect producer for this.

 

[pr0xyt0xin]

His heart is human, his blood is boiling, his brain I.B.M.

 

[NealKenneth]

From what I can tell, he's a master of hiring the right people for the job.

 

[2kt09]

Victoria

 

[Spider-Aziz]

Obviously, he learnt from past mistakes and made good plans.

 

[Spiderine]

He took the simplest concepts from the comics. Solo adventures leading to team ups and ensemble films. Introducing new characters by virtue of the other established characters. He is a fanboy at heart who grew up reading comics. He could relate to what audiences and fans wanted to see all these years. He understands what made these characters endure for decades. He took the mistakes from other studios and went in another direction. What more can I say.

 

[Another_Fool]

Blood magic.

Blood magic is his secret.

 

[TheWebbedDevil]

Kevin Feige got his experience with making Comic Book films from Richard Donner, I'd guess is part of his secret to success?

 

[metaphysician]

I can't put a finger on any one thing. I mean, he has a great trust and understanding of the source material, sure. But he also has a great knack for choosing actors and directors, especially inobvious picks. He's clearly also a good enough pitchman to get investors to trust his work. And he's got a good dollop of luck, surely.

 

[Random490]

I remember in an interview Jon Watts (Homecoming director) said he wasn't nervous about directing a huge action blockbuster because Marvel Studios is set up in a way that they can just autopilot a movie if they wanted to. So when searching for a director they look for someone who is capable of telling the character story. His secret is he built a studio filled with creative people focused on story and character first. Other studios are more superficial, if a director is successful at a comic book film therefore are perfect for all superhero films. It's the old marketing idea of all you need to say "from the director who made a movie everyone loves" and a "famous actor that has good track record for box office" then you're good. Now that may be good for marketing but doesn't guarantee a good film

Take Josh Whedon and Zack Snyder for example. Looking at Whedon's body of work it's fairly obvious he's perfect for Avengers. As for Snyder he had a hit with 300 so warner bros figure he must be right from every comic book adaptation no matter what. Like how Fox saw Chronicle's success and figured Trank would be perfect for F4, despite the fact that the type of story chronicle wasn't the type of story F4 typically is. It's much less about finding the best storyteller. You listen to people like Whedon, Russo Bros, James Gunn, Christoper Nolan, etc about making movies and you'll see a huge difference compared to how Snyder discusses it. The former can go on and on about story and character and techniques to tell tell the story and later will just talk about what visuals "look cool". That difference in hiring a director is one of the major reasons

Another reason is the concept of Cinematic Universes is pretty much a gimmick. Whether it's a good gimmick or a bad gimmick depends on how it's done. Marvel Studios is always more concerned with making sure the film they're working on is good and not getting distracted by something 5 films down the line. When Whedon came a board he said he'd only do it if he got to write the story and Marvel said go for it, the only constraint is that it has to be about Loki using the cube to unleash an army in NYC and some else has to be behind it. Everything else including who was behind was up to him. So the whole Thanos and Infinity War was started by Whedon instead of the studio. When making Guardians vol 2 James Gunn said infinity war had no influence on it. He wasn't writing a movie to set up the Guardians for a future film, instead the future film was going to be written around what happens in vol 2.

Compare that to the DCEU or the Universal Monsters. Both BvS and Mummy were far too concerned with universe building and setting up future films than just telling a singular good story and those movies suffered for it. Just studio's desire to capitalize on the cinematic universe craze with the concern of telling a story well.

That's the key difference between the Studio Fiege developed and other film studios.

 

[metaphysician]

Hmm, yeah. Thinking about it, the "cinematic universe" concept is something Marvel uses in order to advance the cause of character, by giving characters more chance to recur, be used and developed, and to bounce off other fully developed characters. Its a means, not an end. Everyone else seems to view it as an end.

 

[Darkraid]

You should spell his name right before learning his secret.

 

[David H.]

He made a deal with Mephisto.

 

[Spider-Aziz]

He's not Paul Fieg.

 

[Guard82]

There's no mysterious secret about it. Feige just happens to be a very talented producer who also happens to care deeply about the Marvel Comics universe and all its characters. He understands the appeal of the Marvel characters, and he knows how to capture their essence in adaptations in ways that will make people enjoy them and identify with them. Also, he's very skilled at organizing and coordination, and at working with diverse people, which is an essential skill needed to coordinate all these films into one cinematic universe.

There's no magic involved -- Feige is just a very talented filmmaker who happens to have a passion for the Marvel source material and wants to see it represented in the best way possible in film.

 

[StormC]

Time and patience. It took four years and five films to get to the Avengers. With that time and patience, it allows for course correction when some things fall through the cracks. Phase 3 has been in large part adjusting for missteps in Phase 2 without feeling like a giant apology for it (compare it to the direction Justice League took after BVS's reception).

 

[Spider-Aziz]

He's always angry.

 

[GeckoMoria]

A rare combination of a comics fan+ film buff. Few people know this but Feige has actually studied film in USC like Zemeckis. So he can actually dirrect films if he wants. So he is not a numbers person like Arad or Ike. He doesn't care about shares or toy sales. He cares about the properties.

 

[Hypestyle]

best of success to him, his track record has been very lucrative for Marvel/Disney.

 

[R_Hythlodeus]

I remember in an interview Jon Watts (Homecoming director) said he wasn't nervous about directing a huge action blockbuster because Marvel Studios is set up in a way that they can just autopilot a movie if they wanted to. So when searching for a director they look for someone who is capable of telling the character story. His secret is he built a studio filled with creative people focused on story and character first. Other studios are more superficial, if a director is successful at a comic book film therefore are perfect for all superhero films. It's the old marketing idea of all you need to say "from the director who made a movie everyone loves" and a "famous actor that has good track record for box office" then you're good. Now that may be good for marketing but doesn't guarantee a good film

Take Josh Whedon and Zack Snyder for example. Looking at Whedon's body of work it's fairly obvious he's perfect for Avengers. As for Snyder he had a hit with 300 so warner bros figure he must be right from every comic book adaptation no matter what. Like how Fox saw Chronicle's success and figured Trank would be perfect for F4, despite the fact that the type of story chronicle wasn't the type of story F4 typically is. It's much less about finding the best storyteller. You listen to people like Whedon, Russo Bros, James Gunn, Christoper Nolan, etc about making movies and you'll see a huge difference compared to how Snyder discusses it. The former can go on and on about story and character and techniques to tell tell the story and later will just talk about what visuals "look cool". That difference in hiring a director is one of the major reasons

Another reason is the concept of Cinematic Universes is pretty much a gimmick. Whether it's a good gimmick or a bad gimmick depends on how it's done. Marvel Studios is always more concerned with making sure the film they're working on is good and not getting distracted by something 5 films down the line. When Whedon came a board he said he'd only do it if he got to write the story and Marvel said go for it, the only constraint is that it has to be about Loki using the cube to unleash an army in NYC and some else has to be behind it. Everything else including who was behind was up to him. So the whole Thanos and Infinity War was started by Whedon instead of the studio. When making Guardians vol 2 James Gunn said infinity war had no influence on it. He wasn't writing a movie to set up the Guardians for a future film, instead the future film was going to be written around what happens in vol 2.

Compare that to the DCEU or the Universal Monsters. Both BvS and Mummy were far too concerned with universe building and setting up future films than just telling a singular good story and those movies suffered for it. Just studio's desire to capitalize on the cinematic universe craze with the concern of telling a story well.

That's the key difference between the Studio Fiege developed and other film studios.

100% this. except for the 'Fiege' instead of Feige part of course

 

[Erzengel]

Fiege uses Disney money to pay off critics and fans.

 

[Another_Fool]

There's no magic involved -- Feige is just a very talented filmmaker who happens to have a passion for the Marvel source material and wants to see it represented in the best way possible in film.

Heresy.

 

[DrCosmic]

Desire is nice, but no, just liking the characters isn't enough. All of us love these characters, but not all of us can run a huge studio and crank out three successful superhero movies a year.

In addition to appreciation for the characters, K-Feig is the most experienced person in the world at producing American superhero movies. He was there in all the production meetings for all Marvel films at Fox and Universal and Sony. Kevin Feige doesn't just know what went wrong with Spider-Man 3, he watched it happen in his email inbox. He's seen all the mistakes that have been done, and how they happen in the meetings before they hit the screen, and so he doesn't make those mistakes. What Kevin Feige was doing back in 2000 is what WB and Sony are doing now, trying to build something, but now with the added pressure of the MCU looming over everything. Fox has all the advantage of the experience of the 2000s, but without anyone with a deep appreciation for the characters and comics, except for a couple of their actors, most notably Ryan Reynolds.

That's Kevin's secret: he's been doing this longer than anyone else. It's that simple.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0270559/

 

[R_Hythlodeus]

That's Kevin's secret: he's been doing this longer than anyone else. It's that simple.

except for Lauren Donner, of course

 

[GeckoMoria]

except for Lauren Donner, of course

And yet i'm still not sure that she understands the X-men or any Marvel property for that matter. Even after so many years i'm certain Fox understands the X-men at a pure social and superficial level.