Even being someone who has an admitted DC lean, it’s impossible to deny the runaway success of Marvel Studios and all they’ve accomplished since 2008. In other words, box office numbers and merchandise sales don’t lie, both making it apparent that the characters appearing on film under that umbrella have resonated with moviegoers the world over.
Naturally, there are many ingredients when it comes to recipes for such great success, but according Joe Russo, co-director on the upcoming Avengers: Infinity War, one basic factor has allowed Marvel Studios to flourish where others may haven’t:
“Simple. They don’t have a Kevin [Feige].”
To be honest, that may very well be true. Actually, fans have been saying that for years, and the fact that one man who is intimately familiar with the source material is overseeing a shared universe shows. To date, Warner Bros. has let DC Entertainment President Geoff Johns, a comic book writer himself, have more input in their superhero flicks, but it’s become obvious that studio executives are calling all the shots over there, making creative decisions and ordering reshoots that some feel are ultimately detrimental to the final product.
Fox, meanwhile, has Simon Kinberg to an extent, so we’ll see how their X-Men-centric universe pans out now that they’re generously expanding with the likes of The New Mutants and X-Force. Granted, I like the maturity of what they’ve put out thus far, but Fox has yet to put up the numbers that Disney has.
Avengers: Infinity War arrives in theaters on May 4th, 2018. In the meantime, you can expect the first trailer to drop sometime in early December.
