Kevin Feige says Guardians of the Galaxy is “95% in space” and Iron Man 3 is a “Tom Clancy political thriller”

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Ah, Phase Two, we seem to be getting a lot of nuggets of information on you these days. The official begin of the next stage of the Marvel Cinematic Universe will be the highly anticipated IRON MAN 3 on May 3rd, but Kevin Feige has been doing the nice job of spreading as much news as he can on all of the upcoming films, especially GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY.

Screen Rant posted some quotes from the upcoming issue of SFX Magazine regarding the Phase Two movies and their distinct genre approaches. In wondering whether or not IRON MAN 3 and THOR: THE DARK WORLD were serving as direct lead-ins to GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, Feige shared this:

“I wouldn’t say that in a broad sense. The Thor film and the GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY film certainly are cosmic. GUARDIANS and THOR will take the brunt of the cosmic side of the universe, particularly GUARDIANS, which is 95% in space. I think IRON MAN 3 shows the other side of Phase 2, which is delving deeper into the characters. Throwing them on a much more personal journey. And CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER will showcase… What’s exciting to me about Cap – sort of about IRON MAN 3 too if you look at it – is it’s tonally almost like a different genre. Shane Black’s described IRON MAN 3 as a Tom Clancy sort of political thriller, which I like a lot. We hired our directors on Cap because they loved our explanation that we really want to make a ’70s political thriller masquerading as a big superhero movie. Just like with the first film – we got Joe Johnston because we said, ‘We want to do a ’40s World War Two movie masquerading as a big superhero movie.’ I love that we’re doing a sequel to a film that’s a completely different genre than the first film. I think that’s fun. And the comics do it all the time.”

The best part of this news is that Feige and Marvel are willing to toy with the franchises instead of churning out carbon copies. My biggest problem with IRON MAN 2 was that it felt too much like the first movie. IRON MAN 3 is looking fresh and hopefully all of the upcoming sequels will take the cue from that.

Feige continues to say that GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY is a very standalone movie and does not rely on the other elements of the Marvel universe. So, I would think that means that we should not expect to see these characters in THE AVENGERS 2, but you and I both know it would be foolish for Disney to not try and replicate the success of THE AVENGERS. Maybe they are just being cautious and not trying to cram too many characters into a single movie and will save the GUARDIANS for another future movie. Or, maybe they are just waiting to see if audiences turn out to see the flick before adding them to any other movies.

For now, we know to expect these Marvel movies: IRON MAN 3 on May 3, 2013, THOR: THE DARK WORLD on November 8, 2013, CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER on April 4, 2014, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY on August 1, 2014, THE AVENGERS 2 on May 1, 2015, ANT-MAN on November 6, 2015, and DOCTOR STRANGE sometime in 2016.