Kevin Feige Explains Why Marvel Relies on Indie Directors for Huge Projects

Going all the way back to Iron Man director Jon Favreau, producer Kevin Feige and his cohorts at [...]

By Russ Burlingame

Going all the way back to Iron Man director Jon Favreau, producer Kevin Feige and his cohorts at Marvel Studios have worked with talented directors, many of whom have been young and plucked from indie film, or lower-profile mainstream fare. Certainly, that has not been exclusively the case (see people like Kenneth Branagh, Joss Whedon, and Taika Waititi), but Marvel's batting average bringing in filmmakers from outside of the typical blockbuster sphere has been pretty good, and they're continuing it with indie darling and Academy Award winner Chloe Zhao on Marvel's The Eternals, a sprawling, mythological tale based on some of Jack Kirby's most ambitious and "out there" work -- which is saying something.

Feige, who has overseen the Marvel Cinematic Universe since its inception and who plays a key role in finding talent for the films, has had nothing but high praise for Zhao throughout the process on The Eternals. Speaking with industry trades following her Oscar win, Feige said that Zhao fits a profile of the kind of filmmaker Marvel aims to work with, many of which end up being independent filmmakers.

"These are the kind of filmmakers we want to work with, regardless of the size of the film they've done before," Feige told Variety. "Unique voices, with unique things to say. And in her case, which is not always a prerequisite by any means, she was a giant fan, both of the MCU and of the comics fan and of the genre. Which watching her movies you wouldn't necessarily guess. So it was neat that she let that be known."

He said that in the case of Zhao personally, Nate Moore helped put together a shortlist for potential Eternals directors, and her pitch was "absolutely spectacular."

"Props to Marvel — from early on, they knew the way I wanted to make this film, how I wanted to shoot," Zhao said during a recent interview. "It can't be hundreds of people standing around. So they very much adapted how to run the set the way that I wanted to work. I'm still surrounded by 25 people. They just have armies, and each of them knew they needed to keep the army away."

The Eternals features an exciting new team of Super Heroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, ancient aliens who have been living on Earth in secret for thousands of years. Following the events of Avengers: Endgame, an unexpected tragedy forces them out of the shadows to reunite against mankind's most ancient enemy, The Deviants

The film is set for a release in theaters this November.

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