Buckle up, buddies, we’re going for a ride.
Earlier this week The Hollywood Reporter revealed that Marvel’s Kevin Feige would now be reporting to Disney’s Alan Horn, rather than Marvel Entertainment CEO Ike Perlmutter. Tensions between Perlmutter and Feige had reportedly been high for years; earlier this year, an email released by the Sony hack seemed to show Perlmutter outlining reasons why a female-led superhero movie would be a financial failure.
Now, according to news initially reported by Heroic Hollywood, it seems Marvel isn’t done restructuring. Devin Faraci at Birth Movies Death says he can “confirm” that the Creative Committee, which consisted of Kevin Feige, Brian Michael Bendis, Joe Quesada, Alan Fine and Dan Buckley, has been disbanded. Faraci explains:
What was the Creative Committee? It was a group of people who would give notes and thoughts on Marvel productions as they made their way from script to screen. Some of the guys on the committee included Alan Fine, who came with Perlmutter to Marvel through Toy Biz, Brian Michael Bendis, who is a prolific Marvel Comics writer, Dan Buckley, publisher of Marvel Comics and Joe Quesada, former editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics and the current Chief Creative Officer of Marvel Enterprises.
According to Faraci’s conversations with a “Marvel creative,” the Creative Committee, although a good idea in theory, often roadblocked some of Marvel’s more progressive and creative ideas; he writes that “the notes that drove Edgar Wright off Ant-Man came from the Creative Committee.”
With Perlmutter and the Creative Committee out of the picture, Faraci says that female fans may finally get some of the merchandise we deserve:
Any drag or difficulty caused by the Creative Committee is over, and any skinflint choices and bizarre decisions made by Ike are out of the way (trivia: I understand the reason there are no Black Widow toys is specifically because Ike, with a background in toys, believes girl toys do not sell and thus vetoed them again and again. One guy was the roadblock.)
Key creative decisions going forward will now reportedly be made by Kevin Feige, Louis D’Esposito, and Victoria Alonso alone.
Although I’m honestly a little skeptical that all the information coming out about the Creative Committee is true (it’s especially hard to believe that Perlmutter alone was responsible for the lack of Black Widow merchandise), it’s definitely exciting to see a woman finally being given so much influence over Marvel’s future.
What do you think, friends?
(via Uproxx)
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