Earlier this year, much was made of Marvel Studios’ decision to do away with the Creative Committee, which was made up of various Marvel executives and comic book writers who would weigh in on and sometimes greatly influence the content we see in the studio’s movies.
This all happened when Kevin Feige decided he wanted to report directly to Disney instead of Marvel Entertainment, and now Captain America: Civil War directors Joe and Anthony Russo have weighed in on what sort of impact this ended up having on the first Phase 3 movie.
According to Joe, it doesn’t sound like it made too much of a difference.
“To the audience, I don’t know if they’ll see a difference in the quality of the movies. That’s for sure because Kevin Feige is still the brains behind Marvel, and that hasn’t changed. I just think, from a political standpoint, the machinations of the studio have become more streamlined. Does that make for a better creative storytelling? Yes, absolutely because it’s easier for my brother and I to sit in a room with Kevin and discuss storytelling, and to come to creative decisions, and move through those decisions much quicker.”
It’s hard to argue with anything that’s said there, and when asked specifically about whether the Creative Committee (which may have played a role in Edgar Wright’s decision to leave Ant-Man) ever stopped them from doing what they wanted as filmmakers, Anthony was quick to point out that that was never really the case.
“Just to speak to our experience on Captain America: The Winter Soldier, we didn’t have a whole lot of interaction with the committee. So, for us on a personal level, I don’t know if it will be that different because we’ve never engaged with them that much anyway. Maybe other directors have had a different experience, but for us, we had a very limited interaction with the committee. We deal with Kevin Feige and Marvel Studios. That’s how we made Captain America: The Winter Soldier and that’s how we made Captain America: Civil War.”
So, in other words, we have nothing to worry about. There was some concern initially about Captain America: Civil War possibly turning out very differently because of the severing of ties between Marvel Studios and Marvel Entertainment, but it sounds like next May will bring with it one of the studio’s most exciting efforts yet.