Words From Captain America Movie Producer Kevin Feige

I was invited to the #CaptainAmericaEvent. Costs and expenses for my trip were covered by Disney but all opinions expressed are my own.

Even though it can be exciting getting to interview the star celebrities of a film, it is also just as exciting to interview the ones behind the scenes.

During my trip to Los Angeles, not only did we interview Chris Evans who plays Captain America, but we also had the opportunity to interview the Producer of Captain America, Kevin Feige who also happens to be the President of Mavel Studios!

Some history on Captain America Movie Producer Kevin Feige:

On the first X-Men film, Shuler Donner made Feige an associate producer, due to his encyclopaedic knowledge of the Marvel Universe.He has been involved in all of Marvel Studios’ theatrical productions since then. Feige was named President of Marvel Studios in 2007.  In November 2012, it was announced that Feige will receive the Motion Picture Showman of the Year award at the ICG Publicists Guild Awards on February 22, 2013. The Awards committee chairman, Henri Bollinger, said “Kevin Feige’s understanding and appreciation of publicity and promotion in the role of a movie’s success has led to a string of blockbuster feature films adapted from the pages of Marvel comic books during the past 10 years. (Source: Wikipedia)

Our time was limited with this brilliant man but we were able to ask Feige some great questions. Below are the questions we were able to ask during our time with Kevin at the Captain America Press Junket last month:

Can you tell us what comes next?

Kevin Feige:  Uh well I mean I can tell you what, uh, you know, what is actively, we’re actually on.  Now we’re, um, spending a lot of, uh, a lot of time now in the cutting room on “Guardians of the Galaxy” which comes out August 1st.  We just released the Teaser for it recently.   And in, uh, about 2 weeks, we start filming “Avengers Age of Ultron”, um, so that’s coming up very fast and that will be the next Movie up in May of 2015.  And then in about 10 weeks, we start filming “Ant-Man” with Michael Douglas and Paul Rudd, uh, and that comes out in July of 2015.

We haven’t announced what comes after that in 2016/2017 but we’re actively working on, uh, you know, any number of things, uh, and are beginning to hone in on sort of exactly what the Movies will be in — in ’16 and ’17 but it’s slightly too early to talk about.

What problems did you have on the Big Screen vs. the Comics?

Kevin Feige:  Well it, uh, that was one of the reasons to do it, is that those are two of the reasons to do it.  It has never been done before which is, you don’t get a chance very often to do something in — in this business that’s never been done before, 100 years of Cinema.  Um, and now somebody will point out somewhere they’re done it before but your point is taken.  And uh, and um, that is what the Comics have been It was a shared Universe from its inception essentially in the Comics.  And when it was sort of Character by Characters, Studio by Studio, that — that was impossible but when we became our own Studio and had, got the financing to do that, it was, uh, the first idea was make a great Ironman movie, um, and the second idea was wait a minute, we can begin to tie these together.

Um, and you know, the biggest challenge is making it, making that continuity and that interconnectivity broaden the, uh, the Universe, broaden the — the Audience as opposed to make it feel like a Club, making it fold in on itself and say Oh you need to know everything that’s going to — to see any of these Movies.  We work very hard to make each of the Movies feel like a stand-alone Movie, um, but at the same time connect in to — to everything else.  And that’s, uh, I wouldn’t say that’s the biggest challenge but that’s — that’s been our sort of, uh, our Mission Statement and that’s what we try to stick to.

Is it intentional that you always incorporate older Superheroes?

Kevin Feige: Well I think — I think that’s, uh, indicative of our development process.  We just believe that’s the best way to bring the Villains into it.  It’s more personal in this Movie than in any other Movie because of who the Winter Soldier is but, you know, Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s Father, right?  I mean, that’s — that’s Spoiler, Shoot, Sorry.  So Sorry.  But it’s, uh, that is — that is often times from the Comics, from — from, uh, Mythology.  Lunky’s been, you know, a Photo Source for thousands of years.  Um, uh, but that’s — but that is just, is a wonderful way to link a Hero to Villain.  And that’s what we’ve done.

Are there perks with working with Celebrities?

Kevin Feige:  Uh, that’s very funny.  Um,  no.  The only favor I want is for them to do the Movie and to do an amazing job in the Movie and they have — they have done that up to this point.

Talk about the controversy around Winter Soldier.

Kevin Feige:  Well no they had already done it.   You know, they’re — they’re, Comic Fans always knew sort of two things in — in about peak Characters die and come back to life in Comics, in like in Soap Operas, like in any sort of Fiction all the time.  But there are two Characters in the Marvel Universe that are never gonna come back to life, Uncle Ben and Bucky Barnes.  And about 10 years ago or 12 years ago, a Comic Book, uh, Writer, Ed Brubaker went to Publishing.  I didn’t — I didn’t have anything to do with it, went to Publishing and said, I have an idea to bring Bucky Barnes back.  And I’m sure they’re like what are you talking about?  You can’t do that.  And they pitched the idea and it was great.  And it was the Winter Soldier idea and it was done so well and you’re right, I think Fans went No, you can’t– Oh that’s great, we love that.  Um, that we just — we just took the successful blueprint that they had already done and brought it into this Movie.

Is there any hope to get other Characters with other Studios?

Kevin Feige:  No I think — I think we’re all, they’re busy making, SONY’s busy working on Spiderman Movies, Spiderman II is coming out very soon.  Fox is, uh, is, uh, working very hard on X-Man and they’ve got an X-Men Movie coming out very soon, and we clearly, um, are spending a lot of time, uh, doing our two Movies, two Movies a year.  I don’t want to say Never say Never necessarily but I don’t know that that would happen any time soon, and we’re certainly not planning for it.  It’s Phase 12.  Do you have a question in front?

To find out some of the other questions we asked we asked the Captain America Movie producer Kevin Feige, be sure to follow the #CaptainAmericaEvent hashtag on Twitter to keep up to date with the latest Captain America news!

Captain America fans, be sure to:

• Like Captain America on Facebook: facebook.com/captainamericamovie
• Follow Captain America on Twitter: twitter.com/CaptainAmerica
• Find Captain America photos on Tumblr: tumblr.com/tagged/captain-america

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER releases in theaters everywhere on April 4th!