Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige Says Female Director Announcements Are Coming

Marvel Studios president and producer Kevin Feige says there are plans for the Marvel Cinematic Universe to recruit more female directors.

"We've got announcements that we'll be making at some point revealing that," Feige told GameSpot during promotion for Ant-Man and the Wasp, the first Marvel Studios production to feature a female superhero in its title.

"I cannot promise that all 20 Marvel movies will have female directors but a heck of a lot of them will," Feige said during a presentation at the Produced By conference in June.

The upcoming Brie Larson-led Captain Marvel — Marvel Studios' first movie headlined by a woman — is also the first production out of the Disney-owned studio to boast a female director, Anna Boden, who co-directs with longtime collaborator Ryan Fleck.

Marvel is eyeing female filmmakers for the Black Widow movie being developed as a vehicle for longtime MCU star Scarlett Johansson, with Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don't Cry) and Cate Shortland (Berlin Syndrome) among the candidates.

The move comes as the genre broadens its horizons towards more inclusion as female directors helming superhero projects are a rarity: Lexi Alexander steered 2008's Punisher: War Zone and Patty Jenkins was only the second woman to direct a live-action movie with a budget exceeding $100 million in last year's hit Wonder Woman. (Jenkins was once attached to direct 2011's Thor: The Dark World for Marvel, but left the project over creative differences.)

On Marvel's TV side, the second season of Marvel's Netflix series Jessica Jones featured exclusively women directors for all 12 episodes and the sophomore season of Luke Cage also showcased more female directors, among them Charlie's Angels and Elementary star Lucy Liu.

In front of the cameras, the ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe will continue to grow to the point where "more than half" of its featured heroes will be women, Feige told Screen Rant just days ago.

Feige's comments come as part of a continued promise to diversify their stories — not just for representation's sake, but to tell fresh stories grounded in a contemporary reality.

Marvel next releases Ant-Man and the Wasp July 6, followed by Captain Marvel March 8, Avengers 4 May 3, and Spider-Man: Far From Home July 5, 2019.