Before he became the head of Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige was involved in several Marvel movies across different studios. This was the time when the MCU did not exist yet and the superhero movie genre has not boomed to the level that it is now.
After Marvel decided to form a studio to produce their own movies, soon enough, they were able to reacquire most of the rights back and fully realize the concept of a shared cinematic universe across their iconic characters.
Today, they now own almost all of the Marvel characters in the library with the exception of the Spider-Man characters since they are still owned by Sony although the two studios have also collaborated in a trilogy of MCU-set films.
They have also recognized the non-MCU Marvel movies as part of the multiverse and some of the characters have been integrated into the MCU canon as we've seen in Spider-Man: No Way Home and in the upcoming film Deadpool 3 which will bring back the Fox characters.
There is no doubt that what the MCU has accomplished today is unprecedented, but the journey to where they are now was challenging for those involved behind the scenes, including Feige himself.
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Kevin Feige Admits He Hated the Non-MCU Marvel Movies for One Key Reason
The newly-released tell-all book MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios (via The Direct) revealed that Feige hated Marvel's lack of control over the movies that were produced in the pre-MCU era.
Producer David Maisel explained the problem that they felt at Marvel during the time when various projects were being developed by other studios surrounding their characters.
"Your character is in limbo and somebody else controls it. When you make a movie deal for a license, you’re freezing animation, you’re freezing a lot of other things. You’re handing over your babies to somebody, and nothing happens," he said.
Feige and Avid Arad, the Marvel Entertainment CEO at the time, tried to have influence over the production of those projects but they didn't succeed.
"We suggested but they didn't listen. We didn't have the control. I hated that," Feige admitted.
Marvel writer Craig Kyle shared that Feige became more frustrated over the lack of control which led them to their efforts to gain back the rights to the characters as they're forming Marvel Studios.
"From the moment I touched down in Marvel, Kevin had been telling Avi [Arad] we have to get the rights back," he said.
"Avi was in a situation where he represented all of Marvel. He was the face of Marvel Studios. Kevin was in there to make great movies. That could never be a guarantee until we could actually control the process."
As we all know, their efforts were successful as they now have control in every single Marvel Studios property and almost all of their iconic characters can now be used in any films or TV shows that they're making as part of the MCU.
While they still don't have the full rights to the Spider-Man characters, their current situation is still a massive win for them since they have their hands on now on almost every single Marvel project and fully implement their ambitious shared universe concept similar to the comics.
As Feige recently said, they still have barely scratched the surface as they are yet to introduce the X-Men and the Fantastic Four into the MCU.
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