Kevin Feige thought pitching a female MCU film would cost him his job

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Comic book films have mostly been a male-dominated sub-genre but beginning with WONDER WOMAN in 2017, it has been proven that the ladies are more than capable of handling leading their own films. Although films like WONDER WOMAN and CAPTAIN MARVEL made a killing at the box office, the head man in charge of the MCU, Kevin Feige, made it known that before he had success with CAPTAIN MARVEL, he thought pitched a female-led comic book film would cost him his job.

During an interview with "The Independent", MCU star Mark Ruffalo (Bruce Banner/The Hulk) revealed a conversation that he and Kevin Feige had about Feige suggesting that Marvel should do a female-led comic film and the result had Feige worried about his job employment:

"When we did the first Avengers, Kevin Feige told me, ‘Listen, I might not be here tomorrow. Ike [Isaac Perlmutter, Disney’s largest shareholder at the time] does not believe that anyone will go to a female-starring superhero movie. So if I am still here tomorrow, you will know that I won that battle. He changed the whole Marvel universe. We now have a gay superhero on the way, we have black superheroes, we have female superheroes…No other studio is being that inclusive on that level."

It's interesting to know that was the train of thought back when the first  AVENGERS film came out in 2012. Since the release of that film, the DCEU found great success with the release of WONDER WOMAN in 2017 and the MCU showed initial progression with ANT-MAN AND THE WASP in 2018, which became the studio's first film with a female character's name in the title. They then doubled down on that progress with the release of CAPTAIN MARVEL in 2019 which became a huge billion-dollar worldwide grosser and that has led us to this year's BLACK WIDOW, which is also expected to make a killing at the box office. Comic book films definitely aren't just for the guys and female representation in the genre moving forward will only enhance the popularity of the brand. 

The wonderful thing is that Marvel is continuing to showcase inclusion within the genre. The upcoming Marvel films THE ETERNALS and SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS will feature a diverse cast and in the case of the latter, the film will feature an almost entirely Asian cast. On the TV side, several of the Disney+ MCU shows will be led by women, most of whom will also appear in future movies. A She-Hulk and Ms. Marvel series is in the works and Elizabeth Olsen will also co-headline WandaVision later this year as her character, Scarlet Witch.

Do YOU want to see more female-led comic book films?