Marvel Studios Head Explains Why They Expanded The Number Of Films A Year

Marvel Studios has come a long way in the past 10 years, and along the way has brought a number of fan favorites to the big screen. According to Kevin Feige, those characters are a big reason why they've increased their movie output.

Back when the MCU first started, it was ambitious just to launch the core group that would eventually become Avengers. Since then though Marvel's continued to introduce new characters and takes on genres into the mix, and as Kevin Feige explained to CinemaBlend, that balance is why they've increased the number of films they create.

"It's one of the reasons we've expanded to three films a year, is so that we could do the sequels to films that people have responded to -- because we love to make continuing stories with characters people have responded to -- but also keep doing the stuff that nobody's ever heard of, and people go, 'Why are you doing that?' That's fun. And that's what Phase One was built on, Phase Two was built on, Phase Three was built on, is having that... Whenever we announce the next year, two years, three years, five years, whatever we're going to announce, there will be plenty of those that, maybe people in the know like yourself will know what they are, but the world at large will go, 'What is it? Why are they doing that?' That's exciting, for sure," Feige said.

It's also why there will be a sizable gap between character projects sometimes, but it is important not to rush a sequel out and wait for the right time.

"Sometimes it's where do those characters pop up? [Doctor] Strange, you know, whenever we do another Strange one, which we will do, it will be a number of years from the first Strange, and yet he's a very big part of [Avengers:] Infinity War. So it is just a good problem to have when you have too many beloved characters that people want to see more of, whilst keeping to our core belief that we need to keep exploring nuance and keep doing different types of things," Feige said.

It seems these characters will get their sequels eventually, but we're okay with waiting if it means a better film in the end. Phase 4 will likely feature the same mix of known tentpoles with new characters thrown into the mix, and we can't wait to see what that looks like.

Avengers: Infinity War is now playing in theaters. Other upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe movies include Ant-Man and the Wasp on July 6th, Captain Marvel on March 8, 2019, the fourth Avengers movie on May 3, 2019, the sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming on July 5th, 2019, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in 2020.