After years of being criticized by fans and pundits for being incredibly non-diverse and non-inclusive, Marvel Studios has been making strides to fix those issues. And in the process, the film studio has not only made a more diverse and inclusive MCU, but the studio has also earned a lot of cash at the box office. But according to a new interview with The Independent, Marvel star Mark Ruffalo tells a story that shows the inclusivity and diversity that the studio has attained was hard-fought and could have led to the firing of Kevin Feige.
“When we did the first ‘Avengers,’ Kevin Feige told me, ‘Listen, I might not be here tomorrow,’” said Ruffalo. “And he’s like, ‘Ike [Perlmutter] 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.’”
For those not familiar with how Marvel Studios was run before this meeting that Ruffalo describes, Kevin Feige was President of the studio but everything was run by Marvel’s corporate leadership, led by Perlmutter. So, even if Feige wanted to make “Captain Marvel,” he had to get it approved by Perlmutter.
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This led to the aforementioned meeting, which, in turn, led to Marvel Studios breaking away from the Marvel parent company and reporting directly to Alan Horn at Disney. And as we now know, that’s when films like “Black Panther,” “Captain Marvel,” “Black Widow,” and more inclusive projects were added to the slate.
Ruffalo added, “Because Kevin wanted Black superheroes, women superheroes, LGBT superheroes. He changed the whole Marvel universe. We now have a gay superhero on the way, we have Black superheroes, we have female superheroes – Scarlett Johansson has her movie coming out, we have ‘Captain Marvel,’ they are doing ‘She-Hulk’ next. No other studio is being that inclusive on that level. They have to, though. This is the fucking world.”
While the meeting has been common knowledge for a while now, it’s interesting to know that Feige was indeed worried that he might lose his job over the battle. Luckily for the Marvel boss, and obviously fans, he won that battle and was ultimately proven right, with “Black Panther” and “Captain Marvel” both earning more than $1 billion at the box office and the former earning multiple Oscar nominations.