As Marvel Studios expands to more than three dozen projects in the MCU with many directors and crew members, keeping secrets remains as important as ever. With the story usually being planned and mapped out in some form years in advance, fans and critics are as vigilant about trying to find out what's coming next.
While Marvel has faced plenty of issues with spoilers getting out to the public (see Eternals and Spider-Man: No Way Home), the passion for keeping those secrets internally is as high as ever. Some of these secrets aren't as easy to keep with story details being set up directly from the comics, but more often than not, plot details are under tighter lock and key than most other major franchises in the game.
As usual, at the head of this is Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, who remains active in making sure the MCU's final product is top-notch, even if he's not involved with every single day of production on every project.
Recently, the MCU's newest directors even explained how the franchise's head honcho keeps some of that information hidden from the people who push the stories forward.
Kevin Feige Adamant About Keeping MCU Secrets
The Calgary Herald spoke with Ms. Marvel directors Adil El Arbi and Billal Fallah about their experience with Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, specifically with regard to spoilers and secrets.
When asked about how Ms. Marvel sets up other MCU projects, El Arbi noted how Feige never lets directors in on all of the details. The MCU's top executive would allow him and Fallah to "do a bunch of stuff" with Ms. Marvel specifically, but that only he knew everything about everything in the MCU:
El Arbi: "Kevin never tells you a lot. He tells you, ‘You’ve got Ms. Marvel and you’re allowed to do a bunch of stuff, but stay in the Ms. Marvel world.’ We would ask him about Doctor Strange and The Marvels and he said, ‘That’s on a need-to-know basis. If there’s a problem with what you want to do, I’ll tell you — but I’ll never tell you why.’ ”
Fallah: "Only Kevin knows the master plan.”
The directors also confirmed that their show uses influences from both John Hughes' filmography and the Spider-Man films, even including the animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Additionally, the series is meant to show Kamala Khan's "dream world and her imagination," which was pushed even further with the use of animation:
Fallah: “We wanted to show her dream world and her imagination and, through animation, you can do that. We were afraid that Kevin Feige wouldn’t accept it because it’s so different from other Marvel projects, but we made our case and, to our surprise, Kevin liked it.”
Looking at how Kamala could evolve in the future, the two compared her story to Tom Holland's time as Spider-Man, hoping to reach that same level of success someday:
Fallah: "She has a big future in front of her.”
El Arbi: “The bar is what Tom Holland did with Spider-Man. We can only hope that one day we’ll achieve that level.”
El Arbi also reconfirmed how Iman Vellani was the perfect choice to play Kamala Khan, sharing how she brought "so much of her own personality" and her own experiences to the role as she brought the character to life:
“She’s the biggest MCU fan you can imagine and Iron Man is her all-time favourite movie in the world. Kevin Feige is her idol … she was able to bring so much of her own personality and her own life to the character and she became the heart and soul of the show.”
Kevin Feige: Marvel's Ultimate Vault of Secrets
Keeping spoilers and secrets from getting out to the public is one thing, but it's becoming clear that Kevin Feige takes no chances whatsoever in letting them leak to anybody. Particularly after the spoiler-filled events of 2021 as Marvel Studios kickstarted Phase 4, the team is on a strictly "need-to-know" basis with every new entry that comes to the big and small screen.
Although no movie in this day and age releases without completely avoiding spoilers, fans and the studio alike remain adamant about making sure that the viewing experience stays as authentic as possible. Billal Fallah and Adil El Arbi's quotes remind viewers just how much Feige is at the forefront of that movement, especially as the head of arguably the biggest pop culture franchise running today.
As the MCU continues to expand over the next few years, Feige and the directors who work for him will certainly keep that same level of vigilance when it comes to protecting the franchise's secrets.
The first two episodes of Ms. Marvel are available to stream on Disney+.
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