A Marvel to behold: Kevin Feige on Avengers: Endgame's top secret

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A Marvel to behold: Kevin Feige on Avengers: Endgame's top secret

By Michael Idato

In an era of social media noise, marketing campaigns and constant spoilers, it is sometimes a challenge to get to the opening titles of a movie without having seen half of it already.

Pre-digested pop culture is the new normal: all that's left after a teaser, two trailers, the Comic-Con panel, the pizza boxes, posters and the cacophony of noise as media outlets jostle to lay claim to their piece of an ever-thinner pie.

Avengers: Endgame hopes, in spite of the monstrous marketing campaign which is stalking it like a superstorm cell, to buck that trend.

The film's key plot details have been locked down. The trailers have been carefully framed using only material from the first quarter of the film. And even the directors Joe and Anthony Russo have released a letter to fans pleading with them to keep the film's mysteries a secret.

"Don't spoil it for others, the same way you wouldn't want it spoiled for you," the letter says.

Kevin Feige, the producer or co-producer of 41 Marvel films since 2000 and the president of Marvel Studios since 2007, says there is always a balance to be struck "between selling the movie, which you have to do, and giving enough away that an audience is intrigued and wants to buy a ticket, get in their car and go to a theatre."

Doctor Strange, Iron Man, The Hulk and Wong in Avengers: Infinity War.

Doctor Strange, Iron Man, The Hulk and Wong in Avengers: Infinity War.Credit: Marvel

"But also balancing that out with protecting the story and allowing the experience once they get to the theatre to be pleasurable and surprising," Feige adds. "I think on a lot of our movies, we always choose things to hold back.

"Sometimes the [parent] studio convinces us that we need to show more than we want to because it's necessary to sell the movie, but I would say most of our films, you look at most recently Captain Marvel, had a big twist in it that we don't indicate at all in the trailers."

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But the details of Avengers: Endgame, which promises to "definitively" end the long-arc which has run through 22 films set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe – the "MCU" – are unusually scarce.

"Because the movie is so different from [its predecessor] Avengers: Infinity War, because there's so much in this movie that we want to be surprising, not just like in Infinity War at the very end but throughout this film, that the marketing department at Disney very much agreed with [the plan]," Feige says.

"It's a testament to them being the best in the business, dare I say the best in the history of the business right now, that they were able to put together two trailers that were the two most viewed trailers in history with a relatively limited amount of footage."

Steve Rogers, aka Captain America (Chris Evans) is one of the survivors in Avengers: Endgame.

Steve Rogers, aka Captain America (Chris Evans) is one of the survivors in Avengers: Endgame.

Indeed, big franchises are not as they so often seem indestructible cultural monoliths. Many of them struggle. Warner Bros-owned DC's struggle to get the tone of its Superman and Batman movies is well known. And even Star Wars, perhaps the greatest single piece of pop culture in the last century, cranked out hit after hit but stumbled with 2018's Solo: A Star Wars Story.

So far Marvel has not made a conspicuous misstep. But Feige has no easy answers.

"You know how great it would be if we had a formula, a five-step formula in a safe, and every time we start making a movie, we just pull out that formula and do it, like Coca-Cola or Kentucky Fried Chicken, or whatever?" Feige says. "It doesn't work that way. I wish."

Instead, he says, every film is it's own mess of good and bad ideas. "Then we throw those bad ideas away and find some OK ideas, and then work really hard to try to turn those OK ideas into great ideas," he says. "It's like that every single time."

One clue, perhaps, isn't so much what they do, as what they do not do. There is no second guessing.

"Not a lot," Feige says. "There's internal second-guessing of figuring out what the best idea is, but we do have from our partners at Disney a lot of encouragement to follow our instincts and to take risks, and to head to places we haven't been before.

"That's encouraging [and] there's not a lot of hemming and hawing about it once we get there."

One case in point: Avengers: Infinity War which, by the end, had seemingly killed off many of the MCU's most popular characters, including Loki, Gamora, Vision, Black Panther, Spider-Man, Dr Strange and Scarlet Witch.

Avengers assemble (from left) Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson), Captain America/Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), and War Machine/James Rhodes (Don Cheadle).

Avengers assemble (from left) Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson), Captain America/Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), and War Machine/James Rhodes (Don Cheadle).

"The end of Infinity War was a big swing and a big idea we had four or five years ago that at no point did anybody question, or did anybody do anything but be enthusiastic about it," Feige says. "That just makes it easier for you then to figure out all the other difficult things that need to be figured out during the making of a movie and telling a story that's dope.

"But really there is no formula, there is no secret," he adds. "It's an amazing team of people at Marvel Studios with an amazingly collaborative cast and group of filmmakers that come together to do one thing: make the best movie. That usually means taking risks and surprising people and going to places that one would not expect."

Marvel's film slate is reaching its own turning point, as television's landscape is re-drawn by the emergence of streaming and the coming of Disney's own streaming service, Disney+, on which Marvel's properties will enjoy unusual prominence.

At the same time, however, the phrase "the golden age of television" can be something of a backhander, as it implies a migration of the best writing and directing talent towards the small screen triggered, in part, because the big screen seems to have little to offer them.

Thor (Chris Hemsworth) in Avengers: Endgame.

Thor (Chris Hemsworth) in Avengers: Endgame.

Whatever we think of Batman v Superman, Iron Man or Thor: Ragnarok, few consider them art in the way a filmmaker might. And yet, Black Panther earned a best picture nomination at this year's Oscars, a sign perhaps that with the right level of ambition anything is possible.

Feige is uncertain. To agree on the point, he thinks, would be an acknowledgement of Black Panther's brilliance but also "that our other films, or frankly other films in this genre that we didn't make, were not worthy of that, which I don't think is the case," he says.

"But I do think [that recognition] is nothing but wonderful, and the wins were amazing," he says. "That acknowledgment means something and it is very special."

The conclusion of Marvel's long-arc film cycle of Avengers and "expanded universe" stories comes at a time when cinematic mortality is not as clear cut as it once was. You can thank Game of Thrones, which culled its leads as easily as its extras, for that new narrative norm.

Suddenly, dead means dead, which is a paradigm shift for big ticket films where superheroes have to live to fight another day, and in another sequel. But there are also signs that the trend is shifting and audiences have a huge appetite for new characters and stories which might have once seemed second tier.

Director Joe Russo (left), Captain America/Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) and director Anthony Russo on the set of Avengers: Infinity War.

Director Joe Russo (left), Captain America/Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) and director Anthony Russo on the set of Avengers: Infinity War.

In the era of Guardians of the Galaxy, Black Panther, Aquaman, Wonder Woman and Shazam!, tenured legends such as Superman, Batman and Iron Man are no longer the only show in town.

Those newer characters appeal to audiences who are looking for pop culture properties that don't come laden with centuries-old canon. And like Netflix's Stranger Things, for example, studios have discovered there is power in letting the audience discover characters for the first time, without being crippled by marketing.

And that, Feige points out, "is the very foundation" of Marvel Studios.

"When we started 12 years ago and got financing to make our own movies we did not have the film rights to our most popular characters, X-Men, Fantastic Four, Spider-Man," Feige says. "There was a lot of press about how Marvel [would have] to dig at the bottom of the barrel, or pull out the B-team.

"We never looked at it like that," Feige says. "We just looked at it as sort of exactly what you're saying, undiscovered gems, which is also silly to say because they were very popular characters in comic book form for decades, they just hadn't had cartoon series, live-action TV series, movies before.

"Even Iron Man and Captain America and Thor and the notion of the Avengers were considered second- or third-tier to some people before the films came out," he adds.

"That's always been in the DNA of Marvel Studios, saying, a character doesn't have to be popular or have had a giant impact on the broader culture before we bring them to the screen. Bringing them to the screen in the right way will do that."

Robert Downey jnr kicked off the Marvel Cinematioc Universe when he played Iron Man in 2008.

Robert Downey jnr kicked off the Marvel Cinematioc Universe when he played Iron Man in 2008. Credit: Zade Rosenthal

There is one logical question - who's really gonna die in Avengers: Endgame? - which is too spoiler-soaked to waste time with.

And the letter from the Russo brothers pleading with fans to protect story spoilers comes with one ominous clue: in it they refer to "delivering a surprising and emotionally powerful conclusion to the Infinity saga."

All Feige will say is this: that the comic book library and the film (and television) genre spun out of it is larger, and will live longer, than all of us.

"These characters in all forms will outlive all of us, which is why I can't speak to the far off future, but I can speak to the more immediate future of the MCU that much will be changed after Endgame, I hope in surprising ways and positive ways," Feige says.

"We had a press conference and somebody asked, what can you say about Endgame in one word? Which is very, very hard, but Joe Russo, our co-director, came down to the word cathartic, which I thought was very good."

A third Guardians of the Galaxy film, starring Chris Pratt as Peter Quill, with Zoe Saldana as Gamora, Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper), Vin Diesel as Groot and Dave Batista as Drax, is in the works.

A third Guardians of the Galaxy film, starring Chris Pratt as Peter Quill, with Zoe Saldana as Gamora, Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper), Vin Diesel as Groot and Dave Batista as Drax, is in the works.

The short-term future, at least, will certainly be to mine those former second-tier brands which have been spun into box office gold. Disney's post-Endgame release schedule includes a Dr Strange sequel, a Black Panther sequel, another Spider-Man film and a Guardians of the Galaxy sequel.

Significantly, Feige reveals, the future is already deep in the planning stages.

Yes, he admits, there is a metaphorical whiteboard somewhere within Disney where the destinies of the MCU's key personalities are, even as we speak, being plotted.

"We've been doing that for almost two years already, actually," he says. "We haven't talked about it, and won't be until both Endgame and the next Spider-Man film, Far From Home, come out. But that's been part of the fun of even announcing the end of phase three as Endgame.

"[Initially] we didn't announce that title, but we announced Infinity War and then a follow-up film that would be a culmination and internally, from a storytelling point of view, it was having that ending set that allowed us to look at and start contemplating and now developing a new beginning."

Avengers: Endgame is released on April 24. 

THE SPOILER-HEAVY AVENGERS: ENDGAME PRIMER

I've been busy watching Wonder Woman and Aquaman. What did I miss?
In the last film, Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos (Josh Brolin) completed the assembly of the Infinity Gauntlet and, in the film's dramatic finish, used it to wipe out half of the universe. The next film, Avengers: Endgame, is the last stand of the survivors against him.

What's the Infinity Gauntlet?
An ancient artifact powered by six Infinity Stones: space (blue), power (purple), reality (red), soul (orange), mind (yellow) and time (green). Once fully loaded it gives its wielder almost limitless power, which Thanos used to wipe everyone out.

Will Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) save the day in Avengers: Endgame?

Will Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) save the day in Avengers: Endgame?Credit: Marvel comics

OK, so who actually died?
Vision (Paul Bettany), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Heimdall (Idris Elba) and Loki (Tom Hiddleston), all appeared to die, and notably Loki's death came with a cruel footnote from Thanos: "No resurrections this time." In the film's final scenes many characters dissolve into nothing (along with half the universe) including Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), Spider-Man (Tom Holland), Dr Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and others.

And everyone else survived?
Well, more or less. Iron Man (Robert Downey jnr), Captain America (Chris Evans), The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), War Machine (Don Cheadle), Okoye (Danai Gurira), Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and – we assume – Captain Marvel (Brie Larson), who (kind of) featured in the post-credits scene at the end of Avengers: Infinity War. (Plus, Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and Ant-Man (Paul Rudd), who were not in Infinity War, will appear in Endgame.)

So, I was in a hurry to get to the carpark, and I missed the post-credits sequence?
Well, in a nutshell: as Shield agents Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) were falling victim to the universe-dissipating wave triggered by Thanos, in their final moments Fury sent a signal which received a response: the star-shaped symbol of Captain Marvel, implying that she has received his message and is on her way.

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