Marvel Exec Kevin Feige Speaks about Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, and More!

The recent CineEurope Europe event in Barcelona revealed some footage from Guardians of the Galaxy, and had Marvel President Kevin Feige on hand to answer some questions about where Marvel is heading. He spoke a little bit about the possibility of future installments of Guardians, and you can read those comments here, with some other news about the film.

He went on to speak, via Total Film, about Thanos, Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, Marvel on television, and even Marvel films currently being produced by other studios.

Thanos

The big bad glimpsed at the end of The Avengers, everyone suspects that he will be the main antagonist of The Avengers 3, and Feige all but confirms that. Thanos also has a small, but important role in Guardians of the Galaxy, with Josh Brolin cast to bring him to life on the screen.

Feige: There’s a villain in this film, that comic fans know as Thanos, that moviegoers will begin to learn more and more about in the coming years. He appeared at the very end of the first Avengers film, when he turned into camera and smirked, and we realized he was the person behind the alien army that Loki teamed up with to terrorise New York City, and that the Avengers had to fight.

We see him again in this movie, we learn a little bit more about him in this movie, and he – and his band of followers – is the biggest piece of connective tissue that will eventually lead us back into Avengers films in the future.

Ant-Man

This film has taken quite a beating in the news after Edgar Wright stepped away from the project. Peyton Reed was brought on to direct the film, with Adam McKay to reworking the script. Feige is upbeat about the outcome of this film even if I’m still wary. Here’s what he said:

Ant-Man is still going to come out on 17 July [2015], we start filming this August. Edgar Wright, who I’ve known for many years, who wrote the draft with Joe Cornish – much of the movie will still be based very much on that draft, and the DNA of what Edgar has created up to this point, but Peyton Reed has stepped in.

Doctor Strange

One of the characters Feige has wanted to bring to the big screen is Doctor Strange. With Scott Derrickson brought on board to direct, Feige sees Strange as a window into a completely different aspect of the Marvel Cinematic Universe:

So Strange is very, very important, not just because it’s an amazing character study, and a journey of a man who’s gone from this very arrogant surgeon to somebody who is quite zen and literally keeps all of reality together on a daily basis, but it also is going to open up a whole other side of storytelling for our movies. So we’re about to hire a writer to redo a draft, and we think we’ll be casting probably in the next month or two, and announcing an actor, and then we get into production in the spring of next year.

Television and Netflix

Here’s a very interesting take on the upcoming television series. From the sound of it, Feige and the film division has very little to do with the Netflix series. How much they connect to the MCU is still up in the air:

I think the television division first and foremost need to make great TV shows that stand on their own. But because it is Marvel, we do think they will all fall under the umbrella of the Cinematic Universe, the way Marvel’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. does now, the way the Agent Carter series will, so I do think that Daredevil and Jessica Jones and the other ones will have a loose connection to the overall storyline.

But, just like the most important thing for us with each film, is that each film works independently and stands alone as a great movie, and then the fun part is it connecting to the other world; I think the TV group is doing the exact same thing with each series.

Crossovers with X-Men and Spider-Man

File this one under “unlikely.” While Feige says “never say never”, in the immediate future it doesn’t look like it’s happening.

It would be great, I think, to be able to have all of the Marvel characters interact one day, in a single movie with Marvel Studios, [but] I don’t think that’ll happen anytime soon. Fox is doing very well – [X-Men:] Days Of Future Past just came out, was a big hit, was a very, very good movie. As long as they keep doing that they’ll be able to keep those rights. Sony – same thing – has very long term plans for Spidey, and I think as long as they keep doing that and as long as they keep succeeding, Sony will have Spidey for a long time. So I wouldn’t say anything’s impossible, I’ve been at Marvel for almost 14 years now, and it’s a very different company today than when it was a near bankrupt company just trying to get a foothold in movies when I started. So I always say nothing is impossible but I’m not sure that’s going to happen any time soon.

Oh well, in the meantime, Guardians of the Galaxy comes out August 1, 2014.

Source: Total Film

The post Marvel Exec Kevin Feige Speaks about Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, and More! appeared first on Doddle.