MARVEL: Kevin Feige Says Fox Deal an "Impossibility," Talks Captain Marvel and Recasting Iron Man and Captain America

Art by Dave Keenan

After the Marvel Studios and Sony partnership was struck, many fans were cautiously optimistic about another deal between Fox and Marvel. With the recent news about a character rights trade of Negasonic Teenage Warhead for Ego the Living Planet, fans became even more optimistic. If you don't already know, since Marvel killed Wolverine in the comics and scuttled any X-Men related storylines, tensions are high on a corporate level.

When asked by Variety about some possible collaboration between the studios, Marvel Studios hit maker Kevin Feige commented:

"It’s an impossibility at this juncture. We certainly have enough films to keep us busy for a number of lifetimes."

I wonder how Feige measures junctures? In any case, I'm kind of glad that they are separate cineverses, it just means more comic book movies per year. One thing is for sure, Fox seems to be spinning its wheels from one film to the next. Hopefully, they get things together.

When Variety asked about recasting Iron Man or Captain America, Feige chimed in with:

"Luckily we don’t have to make that decision anytime soon. There are a lot of movies that everyone is signed on for, and we get to enjoy them for a long time. Robert Downey Jr. is Iron Man, and right now I can’t envision anyone else. Chris Evans has embodied Captain America as well as any actor has ever embodied an iconic pop-culture figure like that. I go back to Chris Reeve as Superman as the gold standard, and I think Evans is right there. I couldn’t imagine anybody else.

"But you also look to history: We have a new Spider-Man right now who was in our Civil War film and is in Spider-Man: Homecoming, and the audience has embraced it. And you can look to Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, and Batman as characters that last longer than any one actor playing them. There’s a precedent for it in other franchises that suggests it’s possible. But right now I don’t want to think about it and don’t need to think about it."

This is firmly in line with what Feige has said about "James Bonding" the roles/characters. I hope the Marvel cineverse holds together for a long time using the same actors. But even in the comics reboots at some point become necessary.

Finally, Feige talks a bit about Captain Marvel finding a female director and casting Brie Larson:

"Having a female director at the helm to tell the story of a woman who is also our most powerful hero by far is very important to us.

"With Captain Marvel, who has powers that approach a level that we haven’t seen before in our films, you need to counterbalance that by finding somebody who is also very human and very relatable and can get into a groove with the audience, where they’re willing to see her fly through the sun and punch a moon away from a spacecraft. At the same time, we need her to land and have relatable flaws.

"Brie is a person you’re going to want to go on this journey with, just like Benedict or Robert or Chris Pratt."

The Marvel cineverse is in good hands and every film has been some measure of home run or solid base hit.