Reports: Marvel Studios Cancels Creative Committee

The shakeup at Marvel Studios continues, according to reports by industry insiders Heroic Hollywood and BirthMoviesDeath. Earlier this week, Disney confirmed that Kevin Feige, president of Marvel Studios, would no longer report to Isaac Perlmutter of Marvel Entertainment, instead going directly to Alan Horn, chief of Walt Disney Studios.

With the top-level disconnection from the rest of the Marvel family, it seems another change has followed, as the reports say the Creative Committee, a group of creators and Marvel Comics executives and alums, has been shut down, or at the very least has been removed from the film slate going forward. The Committee, including prominent comic book writer Brian Michael Bendis (who also frequently works in the TV animation and video game departments for Marvel), publisher Dan Buckley, and CCO Joe Quesada, may still have a say at Marvel TV, a side division of Marvel Studios run by (also former comic book writer) Jeph Loeb. Marvel TV had had much closer connections with the comic book side of things, from creators who have written episodes and back the other way with writers from TV coming to the comics.

So what does this all mean? Well, the Creative Committee was originally formed to keep the tone of the films close to the comic books. Creators who actively worked on those characters for years had a say in how they’d be portrayed on film, consulted for dialogue, plot points, and general issues of connections to Marvel Comics’ long history of characters. After seven years and twelve films, the folks at Marvel Studios like Kevin Feige, Louis D’Esposito, and Victoria Alonso likely think they’re well-equipped at this point to handle the creative decisions and keep the tone clear across the board. The official dissolution of the Committee doesn’t mean Marvel Studios can’t or won’t ever go to anyone at Marvel Comics, either, of course.

Ultimately, this means that Marvel Studios going forward is as independent an entity from Marvel Comics as it can be without losing the shared first part of their names. That in turn means that Phase 3 of their films will be, in a way, a new first wave, and a test of how the newly independent studio will handle these billion dollar properties going forward.