Marvel’s Kevin Feige: Audiences Will Never Tire of Superhero Movies

Will moviegoers ever get superhero fatigue? Marvel boss Kevin Feige doesn’t buy it, saying on a new podcast interview that there are 80 years of “groundbreaking” stories told in the Marvel comics that they can adapt into “different genres.”

“I’ve been at Marvel Studios for over 22 years, and most of us here at Marvel Studios have been around a decade or longer together,” Feige said on “The Movie Business Podcast,” hosted by Jason E. Squire, an author and professor at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. “From probably my second year at Marvel, people were asking, ‘Well, how long is this going to last? Is this fad of comic book movies going to end?’”

Feige continued, “I didn’t really understand the question. Because to me, it was akin to saying after ‘Gone With the Wind,’ ‘Well, how many more movies can be made off of novels? Do you think the audience will sour on movies being adapted from books?’ You would never ask that because there’s an inherent understanding among most people that a book can be anything. A novel can have any type of story whatsoever. So it all depends on what story you’re translating. Non-comic readers don’t understand that it’s the same thing in comics.”

Referencing the rich catalog of Marvel comics, which date back to 1939, Feige said there are countless stories for the studio to adapt in various genres.

“There’s 80 years of the most interesting, emotional, groundbreaking stories that have been told in the Marvel comics, and it is our great privilege to be able to take what we have and adapt them,” he said. “Another way to do that is adapting them into different genres, and what types of movies we want to make.”

Feige concluded, “I found that if we tell the story right, and we adapt them in a way that the audience still — knock on wood so far — is following us along 22-plus years later… we can [make] any types of movies that share two things: the Marvel Studios logo above the title and a seed of an idea from our publishing history.”

Listen to Feige’s full interview on “The Movie Business Podcast” here.