When Kevin Feige finally took the stage at San Diego Comedian-Con 2022, the hundreds of attendees in Hall H greeted the studio executive — currently Marvel’s chief art officer and president of Marvel Studios — with the same eruption of deafening applause they used to welcome Tony Stark or Steve Rogers. After the gang’s roar finally died down, one fan even repurposed an indelible line from 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame” to shout at Feige: “We love you 3,000!”
In the storied history of the film industry, you can count on one hand the number of studio executives who have elicited this kind of rock star adulation — and it’s easy to see why fans feel the way they do. Beginning with 2008’s “Iron Man” and “The Incredible Hulk,” Feige’s imaginative vision of bringing the interconnected storytelling of Marvel comics to live-action filmmaking with the Marvel Cinematic Universe has employed dozens of directors and writers, hundreds of actors and hundreds of craftspeople; the films have grossed more than $29 billion worldwide.
And now, on the eve of the release of “Deadpool & Wolverine” — the 49th MCU film and TV title — Feige will receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on July 25.
It’s an achievement Feige, 51, never imagined he’d achieve when he was a kid from New Jersey visiting Hollywood on a family trip. “You don’t expect to get a star on the Walk of Fame when you’re a person behind the scenes,” he says. “That’s my whole dream — just to have a reputation in the credits of a movie, to have a place in this business, in this city that I love unabashedly, without any cynicism. The notion that my name will be on that road forever is extraordinarily, extraordinarily meaningful to me.”
Feige spoke with Selection about how he envisioned his professional life in Hollywood, what he enjoys most about his job, and whether he sees himself running Marvel for the rest of his career.
Kevin Feige at the premiere of “Avengers: Endgame” in 2019.
Getty Photos for Disney
Do you remember when you realized you wanted to make movies?
Of course, I was much younger, probably 10 years earlier. In the run-up to “Return of the Jedi,” George Lucas was on the cover of Time magazine. That’s when I realized that real human beings did these things.
You talked about the diary you just kept as a kid from the movies you noticed. Do you still have it?
I wouldn’t call it a diary. I’d call it a few sheets of loose-leaf lined paper that I turned into a chart with the date, movie, and sound system. That was my summer job as a preteen, charting which movies I was going to see and how many times. I think three times was the most until “Back to the Future Part II,” which I saw seven times in one theater. Or “The Phantom Menace,” which I saw 13 times — but I never really care about that. I think I still have the summer of ’89, which is a pretty spectacular summer.
When you first started wanting to make films, what was your idea of success?
Being in Los Angeles and driving to a movie set every day doing something. (From) trimming hedges on a movie set to being George Lucas and creating universes, I could have felt comfortable anywhere in between.
It seems like the highest point of the pyramid for you was—perhaps to coin a phrase—that Lucasian pinnacle of universe-making?
I like that, “Lucasian.” Of course. I’ve always preferred world-building and the ability to return to characters. I’ve always been excited about sequels. I’ve never been cynical or rolled my eyes in the best way that people still do now for some reason, even though there have been sequels since the ’30s and they’re an absolute pillar of the business. For me, those have always been the things I’ve loved the most, the notion that something I loved was coming back and could develop into what I loved about it.
When did you first learn about the Hollywood Walk of Fame?
I assumed it was maybe a rerun of “I Love Lucy” when it came to Hollywood. I’m sure it was on TV, but also, I took a trip or two from New Jersey to L.A. when I was a kid, and we went to Hollywood. I remember so much walking down the Walk of Fame and seeing names that I recognized, but just as importantly — this is where my star comes in — seeing names where you don’t know who the hell these people are or what they did to deserve a star. I wanted to study them, which is obviously much easier now than it was before the Internet. Usually they were actors, but a lot of times they were behind-the-scenes people, which is what always fascinated me so much.
So what does it mean to have one?
It means a lot. It implies that you’re actually stepping into the historical past of Hollywood. I really liked the idea that these are names that — because the initiatives that people do come and go in relevance or remembrance — you can go to a place in Hollywood and still see the people who made this city what it is.
As you said, there is a very small record of producers who have become household names. When did you start to realize that you were becoming one of them?
I’m undecided, I’ve just noticed that. However, I will let you know that I have a strangely pronounced final identity that my entire life—in restaurants, in class, on roll calls—has always been mispronounced. I remember many years ago strangers coming up to me and saying it appropriately, and thinking, “That’s weird! How do they know that?” So that may have been my first clue.
Anthony Mackie, Chris Evans and Kevin Feige at the D23 Expo in 2015.
Getty Photos for Disney
Of all the things I’ve noticed about you, you don’t seem temperamentally oriented to being well-known in that way. How do you navigate that and how does it impact your work?
To be well-known?
Yes. People are shouting out your identity at Comedian-Con. You’re getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I think it’s safe to say you’re a pretty well-known person.
I’ve been around famous people and seen what it’s like for them when they walk down the street, and what It’s something they have to navigate. I always feel like if someone recognizes me, they’re probably pretty cool, right? Because they’re probably like I was as a kid, learning about how things are done and who makes something versus the face on the big screen. So my encounters with quote-unquote “fame” are almost always extraordinarily constructive and good.
I don’t need to get to the street entrance or get in the back door or get a great table at the restaurant. I don’t care about any of that. However, I was going to a meeting — this was a few years ago, I won’t let you know what the meeting was — and I was a little nervous about it, because I had to promote someone on something. I ended up at a Starbucks first, and a stranger came up to me and said, “Oh, hey, I just want you to know that I really love everything you do and I admire your work, and that really meant a lot to me, thank you.” I said, “Oh, thank you so much!” And I thought, “The person I’m going to have a meeting with, I don’t think that’s going to happen to them.” That’s all the little ego boost I want from any form of fame.
In the early stages of your career, especially when you worked with Lauren Shuler Donner in the late 1990s, what did you learn about being an effective producer that you still apply to your work today?
For me, what Lauren was particularly good at was — how do I put this? — being the person who wants to talk to everyone about every piece. A lot of times, a director will have something sensitive they want to say to an actor, or an actor doesn’t feel right about something in a script; it’s the producer’s job to make sure that everyone’s concerns are heard in a way that’s not just massaging egos, but just making and then improving the film itself. I remember Lauren talking about hairdos with cast members on one of the first films we worked on and being shocked at how sensitive it was. I don’t have hair. I don’t really think about hair. But to see that all of that came down to the producer to make it possible for all of those little objects and all of those big objects, day in and day out, to be handled so that the film could move forward. That was really inspiring for me to see.
It was largely as a result of working with Lauren that I began to see the influence that producers could have, which I think was clear in the ’30s and ’40s and early ’50s, but sort of faded over time. And never to go back to the “Lucasian” dialogue, but George was the producer on “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi.” That may be a lot of what I’ve found myself doing in the last 15 years — the notion of an artistic producer is something that I think has been gone for a while, and I’m proud to say that it’s still very much around.
You’ve stated that finding the right actor to play Captain America was one of the biggest early challenges for Marvel Studios. What other, more modern artistic dilemmas are you particularly excited to help solve?
Internally at Marvel for a few years, it was thought that “The Avengers” was too big an idea to do in live motion. Maybe we could do an animated movie at some point. Working with Amy Pascal and Tom Rothman (at Sony Pictures) to get artistic oversight on Spider-Man in the MCU and having two colossal studios work well together — those are great examples.
But the reality is that the day-to-day work of a producer is all about the little things. I get excited about the smallest victories, whether it’s an artistic hurdle sitting around a conference room table with an artistic group developing a response to a scene, or being in the cutting room and collaborating on concepts that result in something that you then show to hundreds of thousands of people. I think the sign of truly loving what you do is if you find yourself getting excited about the big things, but also the small day-to-day choices.
Michael Keaton, Robert Downey Jr. and Kevin Feige at the premiere of “Spider-Man: Homecoming” in 2017.
Michael Buckner/Selection/Penske Media via Getty Photos
Your work has grown from overseeing “Iron Man” and 2008’s “The Incredible Hulk” to a full slate of signature films for film and TV and the rest of Marvel’s storytelling enterprise. How much has that affected your day-to-day experience?
I always love being in the weeds. And the more (responsibility) you have, the less time you have to spend in the weeds. So we navigate that; I think that’s clear. We’ve been talking about it for the last couple of years, to scale back so that we all have more time to do what we really love, which is being in the weeds.
Is this your last job?
When do you mean to make movies in Hollywood that go all over the world and reach people? I hope so, of course.
I meant being the art director of Marvel.
I don’t know. But it’s certainly what I do in this job that I hope to do (forever). We had (the “Deadpool & Wolverine”) set up in Asia in the last few days, they’re in Europe now, and I like to see the response to them. It’s a unique thing that this business can do on a global stage. I hope I’ll be able to be a part of that for the rest of my days.
This interview has been edited and condensed.