Marvel Studios Boss Says the Internet Is a "Hell Pit"

While there are no shortage of outlets that discuss film and entertainment on the internet these [...]

While there are no shortage of outlets that discuss film and entertainment on the internet these days, that wasn't always the case. It wasn't too long ago when discussion of film -- and the places to do so -- online were few, but while that has dramatically changed in recent years it's a change that not everyone thinks is necessarily a good thing and Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige appears to be one of them. Feige recently sat down for a Q&A session with New York Film Academy's Directory of Industry Lecture Series, Tova Laiter, and described the internet at as "hell pit".

In the conversation, Laiter briefly spoke about some of the process of making movies and mentioned reshoots and how director Woody Allen would reshoot and redo elements of films as part of the process. It prompted Feige to talk about how there used to be stories of reshoots in the press, a conversation that briefly dipped into the idea of just how much movie talk has changed -- with Feige noting that the crowded digital space isn't exactly pleasant.

"It's great and that always used to be, there used to be stories of reshoots in the press when I started in the building right over there it was literally the dawn of the internet and the dawn of film blogging and Ain't It Cool News and people talking back and now we live in the hell pit we live in today, but at the time it was like 'wow, people have opinions on movies' and on X-Men 1 they didn't like anything about it and there was the quote 'well it's a Marvel movies so you know it's going to be bad,'" Feige said.

On the surface, those comments might seem pretty harsh, but Feige is far from the only person to note how toxic the internet can be when it comes to conversations about entertainment. Various celebrities have addressed the toxic nature of fandom to varying degrees -- most recently The Witcher star Henry Cavill noted that he thinks the situation is more nuanced -- while even Disney CEO Bob Iger revealed this fall that the company backed out of a potential Twitter acquisition due to what he called "extraordinary" nastiness on the social media site.

"The troubles were greater than I wanted to take on, greater than I thought it was responsible for us to take on," Iger said. "There were Disney brand issues, the whole impact of technology on society. The nastiness is extraordinary. I like looking at my Twitter newsfeed because I want to follow 15, 20 different subjects. Then you turn and look at your notifications and you're immediately saying, why am I doing this? Why do I endure this pain?"

What do you think about Feige's comments about the internet being a "hell pit"? Let us know in the comments below.

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