Marvel Boss Kevin Feige Praises James Gunn's Superman as Proof There's No 'Superhero Fatigue' — and Blames Thunderbolts* Failure on Its Characters Mostly Coming From Disney+ TV Shows

The occurrence of James Gunn's Superman, the commencement of a caller epoch of DC Comics movies, proves that the thought of "superhero fatigue" among audiences is simply a myth. That's according to Marvel Studios brag Kevin Feige, who has besides reflected connected wherever galore MCU entries person gone incorrect successful caller years.

With $407 cardinal earned to date, Superman has ensured Gunn's DCU is disconnected to a beardown start. "I liked it a lot," Feige said, arsenic portion of a roundtable interrogation attended by Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. "I emotion you conscionable leap close into it. You don't cognize who Mister Terrific is? Tough, you'll fig it out. This is simply a afloat fleshed retired world."

But portion moviegoers don't look bushed of every superhero movie, they surely look bushed of some. Since Avengers: Endgame, Marvel has suffered from a fig of high-profile flops, including The Marvels and The Eternals, and a drawstring of medicore reappraisal scores, specified arsenic for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Captain America: Brave New World.

Even this year's Thunderbolts*/The New Avengers — by each accounts a captious occurrence — underperformed astatine the container office. Now, Feige has discussed wherever Marvel has been going incorrect — and a batch of it comes down to the sheer measurement of contented it has pumped out.

"We produced 50 hours of stories betwixt 2007 and 2019," Feige said, referencing the play from Iron Man to Spider-Man: Far From Home dubbed the Infinity Saga. Compare that to the six years since, and the quality is remarkable.

"We've had good implicit 100 hours of stories — successful fractional the time," Feige continued, referencing everything released since Black Widow began the consequent Multiverse Saga successful 2021. "That's excessively much." Add successful Marvel's animated series, and the full climbs to 127 hours.

"For the archetypal clip ever, quantity trumped quality," Feige stated, earlier going connected to explicate wherefore — a mandate from Disney to summation accumulation and guarantee streaming work Disney+ was a success.

"We ever had much characters than we could perchance marque due to the fact that we weren't going to marque a movie a month. Suddenly, there's a mandate to marque more. And we [said], 'Well, we bash person more'.

"It was a large institution push, and it doesn't instrumentality excessively overmuch to propulsion america to go, 'People person been asking for Ms. Marvel for years, and present we tin bash it? Do it! Oscar Isaac wants to beryllium Moon Knight? Do it!' So determination was a mandate that we were enactment successful the mediate of, but we besides thought it'd beryllium amusive to bring these to life."

Defending Marvel's determination to massively grow its output, Feige said that it had been close to instrumentality risks and that immoderate Disney+ bid had been praised for their prime — specified arsenic Wandavision and Loki. Ultimately, though, the level of enlargement had "devalued" the wide offering.

"I've ever thought if you instrumentality occurrence and don't experimentation with it and don't hazard with it, past it's not worthy it," Feige said. "What we besides ended up focusing connected due to the fact that of Disney+ was enlargement — and it's that enlargement that I deliberation led radical to say, 'It utilized to beryllium fun, but present bash I person to cognize everything astir each of these?'"

Feige blamed The Marvels' mediocre container bureau show connected this contented — the information that lone Brie Larsen's Captain Marvel had wide assemblage recognition, portion co-stars Ms. Marvel and Monica Rambeau originated successful Disney+ bid immoderate hadn't watched.

"I deliberation The Marvels deed it hardest wherever radical are like, 'OK, I admit her from a billion-dollar movie. But who are those different two? I conjecture they were successful immoderate TV show. I'll skip it,'" Feige said.

The aforesaid contented was past experienced by Thunderbolts*/The New Avengers — contempt Marvel making arsenic overmuch arsenic it could retired of the film's connections to the forthcoming The Fantastic Four: First Steps and Avengers: Doomsday.

"Thunderbolts* I thought was a very, precise bully movie," Feige said. "But cipher knew that rubric and galore of those characters were from a [TV] show. Some [audiences] were inactive feeling that conception of, 'I conjecture I had to person seen these different shows to recognize who this is.' If you really saw the movie, that wouldn't beryllium the case, and we marque the movie truthful that's not the case. But I deliberation we inactive person to marque definite the assemblage understands that."

As a result, Marvel Studios volition present trim its output — with a maximum of 3 films successful a year, and perchance conscionable a azygous Disney+ series. Notably, the workplace has besides focused its slate connected a enactment of upcoming films that consciousness similar sure-fire successes: Avengers: Doomsday, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and Avengers: Secret Wars.

Beyond these, a "reset" mentation of the MCU volition proceed with a caller X-Men reboot. Black Panther 3 is besides successful production, and — astatine immoderate constituent — Marvel says it volition inactive motorboat its long-gestating caller instrumentality connected Blade.

Speaking successful the aforesaid interview, Feige besides revealed that Sony has told Marvel to "stay away" from a live-action Miles Morales Spider-Man, and that Marvel contacted Robert Downey Jr. to play Doctor Doom aft realising "Kang wasn't large enough", agelong earlier the departure of Jonathan Majors.

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You tin scope Tom astatine [email protected] oregon find him connected Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social