Discussion Kevin Feige to Produce New Standalone Star Wars Film

If Disney didn't like what Kennedy was doing with Lucasfilm, they would have dropped her, not extended her contract. And given that massive slate of Star Wars (and Indiana Jones, and Willow, and others...) that she introduced that she is directly overseeing, I really don't think she's going anywhere or getting her calls overridden.

And sorry, but to say that she has nothing to do with The Mandalorian (or its upcoming spinoffs) is just absolutely false. She doesn't just "get a credit." She is, quite literally, the Kevin Feige figure of Disney-era Star Wars. And the fact that Feige himself (without his studio, mind you) is going to produce one individual Star Wars film, underneath her, doesn't invalidate that in any way.

I find it pretty hilarious how much Star Wars fans see these things in this sort of bubble, too, and manage to overlook the literal decades of game-changing history that Kennedy has as producer even outside of our little franchise here. She is damn good at what she does, even if people don't like a handful of the movies that have come out of her time running Lucasfilm. I certainly don't like every Disney-era Star Wars outing either. But to pull the credit (for the good ones, and the bad ones) for assembling the teams behind those projects and ushering them through to conclusion is, quite simply, wrong.

 

I never said Andor would be cancelled.

 

That’s like saying the truth. Who would say that?

 

Why?

That's ok, the person who will develop this film doesn't need to be interesting or a POC, they just need to be good at their job and create a good film, whether it's Feige or anyone else.

He is not the director, but he will be developing the film according to all the announcements. So he does have some creative input to the whole thing.

 

I’m pretty sure Feige writes the story outline for each and every Marvel movie but he never takes story credit. George Lucas used to also give story credits to other writers so that they could receive more money and benefits from the studios and writer’s guild.

 

No, that is not how that happens.

There are two ways that Marvel films happen. They start their genesis in house, with a sort of spec script by an up and coming writer to 'convince' Marvel Studios that a film should be made, and then if one of these internal concepts are a hit, filmmakers are brought in to pitch their own concepts based off of the internal ideas (or, in the case of James Gunn with Guardians of the Galaxy or Chloe Zhao with Eternals, get carte blanche to essentially rewrite the 'pitch' script from scratch). Or, alternatively, Feige and his team decide they want to make a movie about X character, so they have filmmakers come in to pitch. But either way, Feige and the internal Marvel Studios team are leaving more of the actual creative development to the writers and directors, and interjecting when it is appropriate for a producer to step in and steer some things in another direction (much like Kathleen Kennedy with modern era Star Wars). The one notable exception to this, recently, has been the upcoming reboot of Blade; Mahershala Ali actually contacted Marvel Studios and said that he wanted to be Blade, which Feige was all for, so then retroactively the process of finding a team to bring that film to life began.

Feige/Marvel Studios plan much less ahead that one would think, and while the overall style of a lot of their movies can unfortunately get pretty standardized, they really aren't mapping out every single detail years in advance (which is funny, 'cause Star Wars fans keep citing the lack of something like that as the core failure of the ST). Feige has things he wants and requests he makes (for example, he required that James Gunn put a Thanos scene in Guardians of the Galaxy because he knew they'd eventually be doing a big Thanos story, even though they had no idea yet what that would actually entail). But then, on the basis of the first Guardians movie being such a hit, Gunn was allowed to do essentially anything he wanted with the sequel, and that resulted in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, which I personally find to be Marvel's best effort yet, and a wonderful standalone outing with its own style and heart that isn't bending over backwards to set up future crossover movies (despite the fact that the Guardians were slated to appear the very next year in Avengers: Infinity War).

 

We’ve reported as have others that “Loki” showrunner Michael Waldron is going to be writing a “Star Wars” movie that you are producing. What is the rough time horizon for that for you? Are we thinking early, mid, or late 2020s?
We’re thinking that we’re not — that is, um — everything you’ve heard about that has been been leaked. It’s not stuff that we’ve officially announced or gotten into. So, suffice to say, the focus is on all the number of Marvel things we’re working on. The what, where, when and how of that [“Star Wars” movie], I don’t know. I’m excited for “The Book of Boba Fett,” and the “Rogue One” show, and the Obi-Wan show, and Patty’s movie, and Taika’s movie. [Smiles] After “Thor: Love and Thunder,” of course.

https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/kevin-feige-wandavision-1234882498/

 

Bah, this is the kind of project that gets rumored or even announced, two years pass, nothing happens, and everyone forgets about it.

 

Michael Waldron penned Rick and Morty episode "Old Man and the Seat" was amazing ("Do you want to develop an app?"), and the Loki trailer was dope and Feige liked him enough to work on 2 MCU properties so yay go with it!

 

Did you really just say Kathleen Kennedy is the Feige of SW? That is unequivocally false across the board. on like so many different fronts. Favreau is closer to the Feige of SW than Kennedy. Kennedy gave us the ST, and then she signed off on Favreau and Filoni creating an entire Disney + universe. Sure, we can give her credit for that. But lets not delude ourselves into thinking she is anything close to Kevin Feige.

 

This you?

 

Looks like the there is no conspiracy where Feige takes over KK's job. In fact, looks like Feige in SW may well be a one-off, or very limited overall involvement.

Marvel boss Kevin Feige shuts down Star Wars rumours | The Independent

 

Only those furthest from reality bought into that particular conspiracy.

I’m still very much curious about what this project is about despite being years away.

 

Unfortunately, the bar for being "furthest from reality" is very high these days. Lots of conspiracy folks. I must admit I am kind of jealous of them- they can contort conspiracies and events to fit their own narrative to the point where they are believing exactly what they want to believe, no matter how outlandish or unfounded. The best part is- they can still look at themselves in the mirror and not totally laugh at the mockery of a belief system they hold, and what a joke of a human being they have become. Anyway, enough of that misery.

 

Oh I know what he meant. I just find it to be an astonishing comparison for very obvious reasons.

 

So has the rumor started yet that Kevin Feige is going to reboot Star Wars in 2027?

2027 is the 50th anniversary of A New Hope, and Kevin Feige's movie is getting the 2027 date, right?

And Kevin Feige is going to take over Star Wars at that point too, and he's secretly working behind the scenes right now, and he's the one responsible for the success of The Mandalorian.

Is this the way it's done? "This is the way" or whatever...

No, seriously though, it'll be nice to know what his movie is going to be about. Obviously.

And I wonder are they really going to wait 6 years to do it? His might jump Taika Waititi's movie since he's the producer and not the writer or director, or anything like that.

And I guess we're back to the one-off movies again? Because none of the announced movies are trilogies.

Or will it be a "let's release it and see if it's good, and then do more"?

If so, yay, I guess... (but not really). I like my Star Wars in three's.

 

So, pretty much like the RJ trilogy or the GoT guys trilogy?

 

I don't think the GoT showrunners departing is quite the same thing, considering they were publicly ousted from their project. I also don't doubt this happening, for no other reason than Feige being a diehard Star Wars fan and a Disney company darling.

 

I don't doubt this happening either, that's my point. I think the Kevin Feige movie will happen.

The GoT guys left on their own, but ok.

 

I think Feige was a result of (or a part of) the brainstorming for the direction of SW, and getting people involved that were smart and successful in the business to move forward with; surely they were looking at both short and long-term projects and talent. Helpful to have people like that who work for the same parent company and can help out. I'm pretty sure he doesn't have any kind of long term role in SW, other than perhaps an occasional one.

If he isn't directing or writing the script (i.e. has no substantial creative role), which is what I've heard, than this is a much smaller deal than people are making it out to be. It's barely worth mentioning, especially since it is not going to happen much thereafter. Talk about a mountain out of a molehill.

I think it would be enough to generate hysteria if a bathroom cleaning janitor from Marvel went to work for LFL (could be the next SW director, could be a spy, could be a conspiracy, could be taking over KK's job eventually!).

 

Well, he doesn't write or direct anything at Marvel either.

At Marvel, from what I understand, it's sort of set up like television, only that's how they make their movies. And what I mean, Kevin Feige as the president and Executive Producer is the one whose vision is being followed by the directors. Yes, the directors are doing their own thing, but it's within Kevin Feige's vision of what he wants the MCU to be.

That's not how it usually works in movies. For instance, the Executive Producers aren't guiding Christopher Nolan in how to make his movies. Yes, his wife is usually the producer on all of his movies, but she's not telling him how to make his movies.

And by the same token, Christopher Nolan was the Executive Producer on Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Justice League, and on the upcoming Zack Snyder's Justice League. And the producer on Man of Steel. Of course, while Christopher Nolan was the Executive Producer on those films, he didn't tell Zack Snyder how to make Zack Snyder's DC movies. Zack Snyder was the director and he called the shots. And some people loved his DC movies and some people hated them.

Kevin Feige, on the other hand, is more or less calling the shots at Marvel, and the directors are executing his vision, which is usually how it's done in television (only Marvel Studios are doing it that way in the movies). And of course it's been extremely successful for them so far. And if it ever starts going downhill, then it's going to be all Kevin Feige's fault too.

Bringing it back to Star Wars. Kathleen Kennedy's role in the Star Wars movies was more or less in the traditional Executive Producer role. She put it all together, and hired the creatives, and then let the creatives do what creatives do... create. And the result was every movie made over a billion dollars save for one. And she had to fire Lord and Miller from Solo because they agreed to do one thing, and when they got on set they started doing something else that wasn't agreed upon. So they had to go. That kind of "creativity" apparently wasn't within reason of what was agreed upon.

To use an extreme example, it would be like Warner Bros. giving Christopher Nolan $150 million dollars for his next movie and he makes a porno. Yes, he has pretty much free-reign on what he wants to do, but Warner Bros. ain't giving him $150 million dollars to make a pornographic film.

(Of course, Warner Bros. gave Stanley Kubrick $65 million dollars back in 1999 to make Eyes Wide Shut, but that wasn't pornographic, that was a good movie; just maybe a little risqué.)

Anyway, similar with The Mandalorian. Jon Favreau came up with the story back in 2012, pitched it to Kathleen Kennedy, she then put Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni together, and got out of the way and let the creatives create, and the rest is history.

Sometimes you win that way, in the case of The Mandalorian. And sometimes, even though you made about $6 billion dollars over 5 movies, you get some movies that weren't as well reviewed by some fans.

If she had run Star Wars like Kevin Feige runs Marvel, then things may have been different.

But again, the way Marvel is run isn't how a traditional movie studio is run. Marvel Studios, as a movie studio, is run more like a traditional television studio. Or maybe to be more exact, more like a traditional television show, where everyone marches to the beat of the "showrunner" (Kevin Feige), only in this instance it was movies that have made about $23 billion dollars.

I believe on average though, Kathleen Kennedy's Star Wars movies have made about the same (on average, movie per movie, over the same time period; since 2015) as Kevin Feige's Marvel movies.

$1,183,849,828.00 billion on average to be exact, over 5 movies (since 2015), $5.9 billion in total for Star Wars.

$1,185,070,767.92 billion on average to be exact, over 13 movies (since 2015), $15.4 billion in total for Marvel.

I guess Star Wars may need to make more movies or something... or maybe not.

Oh, and I hope Kevin Feige's Star Wars movie is a Sebastian Stan Luke Skywalker movie. With Grogu too, I guess. Other than that, I hope it's something set after the Skywalker Saga.