Got an opinion about the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Chances are, Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige doesn’t want to hear it.
Feige was feted on Thursday night at a USC presenatation alongside filmmakers Ryan Coogler (“Black Panther”) and Shawn Levy (“Deadpool & Wolverine”) where he was asked about the online discourse surrounding Marvel films and how he feels about it.
Feige responded, saying he and those involved in crafting the films deliberately avoid going down fan rabbit holes as the sheer volume of what’s said online “will crush you”. He adds (via THR):
“There are hours and hours of theories on YouTube, hours and hours on TikTok, hours on subreddits… You can read everything on everything and get a different point of view on it. You can go crazy. So, we don’t do that.”
Insstead, Marvel’s early audience feedback comes primarily from test screenings and that the sometimes disappointing early ones are par for the course with this filmmaking:
“It happens when you’ve already spent almost $200 million on a movie and you screen it for people and they’re like, ‘What was that?’ And then the panic sets in. You panic, feel like s—, and then you go back to work.
I thought we were the only morons that couldn’t do it perfectly the first time and had to really work at it to make it great. And turned out that Pixar would do the same thing. And turns out that most great filmmakers [do to].”
Feige then asked Coogler if “Sinners perfect from the first cut?” to which the helmer replied: “No, I don’t know if it’s perfect [even] now, bro.”
