Welcome to Phase 5.
Now, Marvel is ready to begin its next chapter, and EW has your exclusive preview.
(And, of course, he was wearing aQuantumaniabaseball cap.)
Kevin Feige previews Marvel’s Phase 5.Marvel / Getty Images
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Let’s start with Ant-Man.
Why wasQuantumaniathe right film to kick off Phase 5 and introduce Kang the Conqueror?
KEVIN FEIGE:We wanted to kick off Phase 5 with a team of heroes that you already know.
Jonathan Majors as Kang the Conqueror in ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’.Jay Maidment/Marvel Studios
We wanted to actually explore it.
That’s a city.
See that over there?
Daredevil (Charlie Cox) and She-Hulk (Tatiana Maslany).Marvel Studios
That’s a whole civilization."
We were hoping that one day we could explore more of it.
For years, we’ve always had the inkling that Kang would be an amazing follow-up to Thanos.
Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan in ‘Ms. Marvel’.Marvel Studios
He’s got that equal stature in the comics, but he’s a completely different villain.
Mainly, that’s because he’s multiple villains.
He’s so unique from Thanos, which we really liked.
Tom Holland’s Spider-Man and Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange in ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’.Matt Kennedy/Columbia Pictures
And in the early days ofQuantumania[test audiences], Jonathan started to pop in a big way.
He’s the highest-testing villain we’ve ever had in any of our friends and families [screenings].
That’s really saying something with a movie like this.
Even early on without the effects, Jonathan is his own effect.
He was working from the start.
We really go all in on these ideas and this casting.
It was a big relief when theseason ender ofLokiseason 1 happened.
People really seem to be on board for Kang.
People are chanting, “Kang!”
when Jonathan goes on talk shows, and they haven’t even seen him in the movie yet!
What was it about Jonathan Majors that made him the right fit for this?
Like you said, he’s playing multiple versions of this villain…
I mean,The Last Black Man in San Franciscowas a huge reason we cast him.
[Quantumaniadirector]Peyton Reedwas a proponent of Jonathan’s from the very start.
We knew we were casting him for at leastLokiseason 1 andQuantumaniaat the same time.
And spoiler: He was.
How are you thinking about Phase 5 specifically?
Is there a through-line or general theme?
It’s really a classification system for the audience that’s following along.
It’s to keep track of how the pieces fit in place.
But we’re gearing up.
You know, I’m coming up on 23 years at Marvel.
That’s a long time.
It’s not quite half my life, but it’s almost half my life.
[Laughs] Many of us have been together for a decade or more.
Phase 4 was a transitional era.
Several of your original cast members left afterEndgame,and you introduced a whole new group of heroes.
You also started to embrace television, launching multiple shows on Disney+.
What were some of the learnings or takeaways from some of those projects?
I hope we learn something on every project.
I was very pleased with everything that we did.
Kamala Khan, for instance, is a great new character in the pantheon.
I’m very proud of theMs.
I think there’s a future for that character as we move forward.
SNLdid a skit this week.
Did you see it?
The oneabout how many shows there are right now.
[Laughs] But we want Marvel Studios and the MCU projects to really stand out and stand above.
So, people will see that as we get further into Phase 5 and 6.
Both, I think.
You talked about how you’ve been at Marvel for 23 years.
It’s been about 15 years sinceIron Man, andQuantumaniais movie No.
Which is so weird becauseBaskin Robbins.
They have 31 on everything.
You should take credit for that.
Say it was planned.
But I’m curious: As you continue to grow, does it ever start to get unwieldy?
We’ve tried to make that our methodology since the start.
And if you want to follow along, there’s certainly much more to be discovered.
Now, I’ve also realized that a lot of peopleliketo do the homework.
A lot of people find the fun in the homework and the continuity and the connectivity.
But it is a balance of always trying to do both.
She-Hulk,for example, was an experiment: “Let’s just do a legal comedy.”
What ifAlly McBealwas a superhero?
How do we do a legal sitcom with an incredibly expensive CG character in the middle of every episode?
And I couldn’t be happier with the tone that Jessica Gao has set for that.
It’s a very different tone than many of other projects have, and that was totally intentional.
They all have to stand apart and stand alone and be different from one another.
It’s like when people go to the comic shops.
There’s Spider-Man and the Avengers and the big title ones.
So, we have to continue to do different types of things.
Does everything have to appeal to everybody?
It would be nice.
But I think that’s impossible.
You talked about embracing television and how that was new territory for you.
What were some of the biggest adjustments that came out of that?
We always knew that to a certain extent, but it’s fun to see.
We want to do shows that can only be shows.
I want to continue to make them even more episodic, which may seem counterintuitive.
Lostwas an incredibly influential show because it was this serialized story, which was not seen in television much.
Now it’s been how long, 20 years?
Since then, almost everything has become like that.
We’re going to experiment with that in some of our upcoming things.
That’s cool to hear.
You certainly want to keep people engaged.
So, I think we’re going to keep experimenting with that going forward.
What can you tell us about how mutants and the X-Men may or not play into the future?
You know, I think we’ve said the word once.
And mutant is a real genetic term, not just a comic book term.
But we’re not going to talk about it.
[Laughs]
That’s fair.
And we’ve gotHugh Jackmancoming back forour firstDeadpoolfilm within the MCU.
That’s our first R-rated film.
To have Hugh come back is incredible.
For me, personally, that is where I started.
I remember sitting behind the camera wellbehind the camera at his audition for the film.
It’s very full-circle having him come back in this newDeadpoolfilm.
You’ve also gotGuardians of the Galaxy Vol.
3coming up, and James Gunn just took thatbig job at DC Studios.
He tweeted that he spoke to you when he got the job.
What was that conversation like?
I’ve never been shy about loving those characters.
3, of course.
Let’s start withThe Marvels,which you already mentioned.
What can you tell us about the dynamic betweenBrie Larson’sCarol,Iman Vellani’sKamala, andTeyonah Parris’Monica?
That’s what the entire movie is about.
There are fun cosmic elements to it.
Marvel comic fans will recognize elements of the Kree-Skrull war.
And it’s picking up directly after the end ofCaptain Marvel 1,not in timeline but in story.
Tonally, they couldn’t be more different.
But there’s something immensely powerful about seeing Monica and Kamala and Carol together in a frame.
They’re so great together, and they all have different histories with one another.
And that’s fun because we want to be that.
I want to be that.
What can you tell us about his take on that character?
We start filming relatively soon.
He’s tireless with the amount of work that he does.
This is certainly a big part for Thaddeus Ross.
He’s the president of the United States in the film.
This has been a dream for years, ever since Jon Favreau cast Harrison Ford inCowboys and Aliens.
I was always very jealous of that, so to have him finally in the MCU is just incredible.
It’s like, I can cross that off the wishlist.
Thunderboltsis also in the works for 2024, with a bunch of familiar faces.
That’s another one.
We’ve got a lot of things that start shooting relatively soon.
None of them would consider themselves heroes.
When your de facto leader is Bucky Barnes, that’s sort of all you gotta know.
That’s the trickle down.
They’re already here and established in the MCU, and we get to build the movie around them.
You’ve also got theBlademoviewith Mahershala Ali for next year.
How’s that going?
It’s going well.
Our director Yann [Demange] is down in Atlanta right now.
Cameras roll in, like, the next 10 weeks or so.
Do you have any updates on when we might be seeing Peter Parker again?
All I will say is that we have the story.
We have big ideas for that, and our writers are just putting pen to paper now.
What can you tell us about how his show fits into the MCU?
It’s Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio, and they’re amazing actors and storytellers in their own right.
You’ve got a lot of things in the works.
We could be here all day.
Are there any other projects we didn’t talk about that you’re particularly excited for?
And that’s something that is really exciting for us.
People will start to hear more about that soon.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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