It’s been 14 years since the Marvel Cinematic Universe kicked off with Jon Favreau’s ‘Iron Man’. More than two decades and four Phases later, and after broadening its horizons to the cathodic medium, the La casa de las ideas project continues to go from strength to strength while a specific question continues to haunt the heads of locals and strangers: When the hell is the superhero movie bubble going to end up bursting?
go-go superheroes
Kevin Feigehead honchos of Marvel Studios, I don’t quite understand this issue very well.and this has been stated in ‘The Movie Business Podcast’, where he has acknowledged that he has been listening to the same refrain since his second year at the company.
“I’ve been at Marvel Studios 22 years, and most of us have been together for a decade or more. Since probably my second year at Marvel, people have been asking, ‘Well, how long is this going to last? Is this fad for comic book movies going to end?’
I didn’t understand the question, because for me it was like asking after Gone with the Wind, ‘Well, how many more movies can be made based on novels? Do you think the public is going to get fed up with adaptations of books to movies?’. You would never ask that, because there is an inherent understanding in most people that a book can be many things. A novel can have many kinds of stories. So it all depends on the story you’re adapting. Non-comics readers don’t understand that it’s the same for them.”
Feige is clear that, as long as they continue hitting the bald with the formula to shape their series and feature films, we will have superheroes for a while. After all, there are 80 years of original stories to cling to to continue delivering content to the fandom in spades.
“There are 80 years of the most interesting, moving and innovative stories ever told in Marvel comics, and it’s a great privilege for us to be able to take what we have and adapt it. Another way to do it is to adapt them to different genres and the type of movies we want to make.
I’ve found that if we tell the story properly and adapt it in a way that audiences are still following us 22 years later… we can make all kinds of movies that share two things: the Marvel Studios logo above the title and the premise of a idea of our editorial history”.
Will this trend end soon? Will the MCU turn the box office upside down again as it nears the end of the Multiverse Saga just like it did with the Infinity Saga? Only time will tell, but Feige’s confidence suggests that we still have a long season of capes, masks and superpowers ahead of us…