Kevin Feige hits back at James Gunn’s criticism of Marvel scripts: “I have never been satisfied”
Marvel boss Kevin Feige has hit back at James Gunn, after the DC Studios head took aim at the production house by implying that they create poor quality scripts.
While promoting his latest movie Superman, Gunn criticised the movie industry by saying it is “dying” due to films going into production before scripts are fully complete, suggesting that this could have been a possible reason for his move between the two superhero studios.
However, in the run-up to the release of Marvel’s latest movie, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Feige hit back at these claims by telling Variety: “We’ve never started a movie without a full script and I have never been satisfied with a script that we’ve had.”
The filmmaker expanded on this by saying: “Actors, both the ones that are playing these characters for the first or second time and the characters playing them for the tenth or 12th time, are the best in the world at it and know these characters so well,” going on to defend the process of “plussing” that Marvel adopts for its films.
“Plussing” involves changing or adding to the script during the production for a film based on creative feedback, which Feige justified by adding: “If they have an idea, you want to listen to it and you want to adjust to it and you want to improve it. I wouldn’t want to change that.”
Criticising Gunn’s seemingly less dynamic approach to his scripts, the Marvel boss noted: “I know there are filmmakers — James in my experience isn’t one of them; maybe he is now — who say, ‘If you want to be a part of my movie, you just say the words and you stay here the entire schedule in case we need you.’ We don’t do that. We give people a window, we keep to that window.”
It comes after Gunn himself dismissed fears of “superhero fatigue” in the industry, instead claiming: “I think there’s mediocre movie fatigue.”
The Fantastic Four: First Steps will be released in cinemas on July 25th.
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