With “Black Panther” nominated for a ton of Oscars last night (ultimately walking away with just a few), Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige has been making the publicity rounds talking up his 2018 blockbuster, as well as the upcoming “Captain Marvel.” But with “Avengers: Endgame” on the horizon, many fans want to know what’s next. And Feige recently opened up about one of those post-’Endgame’ projects, “The Eternals,” as well as James Gunn’s overblown influence on the MCU.
But before we get to James Gunn, Feige recently spoke to Collider and discussed one of the more anticipated upcoming MCU films, “The Eternals,” which is set to be directed by “The Rider” filmmaker Chloé Zhao. And while this upcoming film might be looked at as a cosmic adventure featuring C-list characters, much like the original “Guardians of the Galaxy,” the Marvel Studios boss is quick to point out that ‘Eternals’ is an example of what the studio has up its sleeve – namely, something very different than what has come before.
“Everything after ‘Endgame,’ and after ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home,’ will be different and be unique, as we try to make every film,” said Feige. “But seeing returning characters is certainly something we’re gonna do and want to do. But also introducing characters that the majority of the world has never heard of, much like Guardians, much like Avengers before we made ‘Avengers.’ And there are lots of them.”
He continued, “Eternals are one group, but we like the idea of introducing an ensemble, doing an ensemble movie from the start, as opposed to building up as we did with the first ‘Avengers.’ More like ‘Guardians,’ not tonally, but in terms of introducing a new group of people. You were asking about ’60s, and ’70s before. Jack Kirby did an immense, amazing epic with ‘Eternals’ that spans tens of thousands of years, and that’s also something we haven’t really done, which is why that among many other things post-’Endgame,’ we find appealing.”
READ MORE: Kevin Feige Confirms ‘Black Widow’ Won’t Be R-Rated
And since he brought up how ‘Eternals’ won’t just be another ‘Guardians’-esque film, we can now look at another recent interview, this time courtesy of CinemaBlend, where Feige discusses James Gunn’s influence on the MCU. For those unaware, before Gunn was dismissed from ‘Guardians 3,’ it was reported that the filmmaker was set to be the de facto cosmic MCU leader, spearheading a variety of franchises and ultimately being the creative mind behind the upcoming space-centric MCU films. However, according to Feige, that’s not the case at all. In fact, Gunn’s influence was fairly localized to his own franchise.
“His influence was ‘Guardians.’ It was ‘Guardians,’” clarified Feige. “It was his input on ‘Guardians’ and the ‘Avengers’ films, as you’ve seen in ‘Infinity War,’ and on the ‘Guardians 3’ script, which we’re still using. So you’ll see that influence. I think online, sort of the notion of ‘architect across multiple cosmic things’ was slightly blown out of proportion.”
READ MORE: ‘Loki’ Series: Marvel Hires ‘Rick & Morty’ Comedy Showrunner
Now, a cynic might say that the Marvel Studios president is downplaying Gunn’s influence because the filmmaker is no longer in the MCU family. But Feige has never been one to play studio politics, so it’s safe to assume he’s speaking the truth. The real proof will be in the pudding, so to speak, as fans see what Marvel Studios has in store for its cosmic films moving forward.