Kevin Feige doesn’t think audiences will ever get tired of comic book movies

Last Updated on February 8, 2023

Comic-book movies have been kings of the box office for the last two decades. Despite all the success, some have wondered when the bubble will finally pop, and audiences will simply get tired of comic-book movies, but Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige doesn’t think that will ever happen.

While speaking on The Movie Business Podcast hosted by Jason E. Squire, Kevin Feige said that people began bringing up the question of comic-book movie fatigue almost from the very beginning. “From probably my second year at Marvel, people were asking, ‘Well, how long is this going to last? Is this fad of comic book movies going to end?’” Feige said, “I didn’t really understand the question. Because to me, it was akin to saying after ‘Gone With the Wind,’ ‘Well, how many more movies can be made off of novels? Do you think the audience will sour on movies being adapted from books?’ You would never ask that because there’s an inherent understanding among most people that a book can be anything. A novel can have any type of story whatsoever. So it all depends on what story you’re translating. Non-comic readers don’t understand that it’s the same thing in comics.“

Kevin Feige added that comic-book movies have longevity because they can easily be adapted to different genres. “There’s 80 years of the most interesting, emotional, groundbreaking stories that have been told in the Marvel comics, and it is our great privilege to be able to take what we have and adapt them,” Feige said. “Another way to do that is adapting them into different genres, and what types of movies we want to make.”

Marvel Studios has had a damn good track record so far, although it’s fair to say that Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has seen its share of criticism. Kevin Feige has previously said Phase 4 was about “resetting the MCU, and meeting all these new characters,” thereby setting the stage for Phase 5, which will kick off with the release of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania on February 17th.

Is Kevin Feige correct? Will comic book movies continue to impress audiences for years to come or will the genre fade over time?