Kevin Feige almost quit Marvel due to battles over Civil War’s budget

A fairly major power shift took place at Marvel this week, with Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige now reporting directly to Disney studio chief Alan Horn instead of Marvel Entertainment CEO Isaac "Ike" Perlmutter. The influence of the Marvel Creative Committee which consisted of Joe Quesada, Brian Michael Bendis, Dan Buckley, and Alan Fine will also be severely limited, as their ideas were frequently obstacles to overcome rather than helpful notes.

Isaac "Ike" Perlmutter's micromanaging and frugality was apparently so bad that THR reports that Kevin Feige almost quit Marvel due to disputes over the budget of CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR. As the film includes almost all of the Avengers as well as a healthy does of Marvel supporting characters, the budget naturally increased which led to frictions with Perlmutter who wanted "to scale it down." Kevin Feige, who has successfully steered the Marvel Cinematic Universe to the billion-dollar juggernaut that it is today, had finally had enough and even "contemplated leaving Marvel" before speaking with Disney CEO Bob Iger, who then approved the restructuring.

As to what this all means for the next phase of Marvel films, it will hopefully translate into greater creativity but it's likely that the majority of the differences will be felt behind the scenes. With a few exceptions, Marvel has been notoriously cheap when it came to offering decent contracts to their talent but insiders hope that this will be one of the first things to change as the new Marvel rolls forward.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR opens on May 6, 2016.