Marvel may have just named a woman as the new Thor, but despite all the rallying for a female-led superhero movie, there’s been no movement on that front—publicly at least. It’s been frustrating for fans of all types, the casual watchers and the diehard nerds, and judging by Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige’s ambiguous take on the matter, it looks like we’ll be nursing that frustration a while longer.
Scott Huver of Comic Book Resources recently interviewed Feige, discussing the hit Guardians of the Galaxy and other Marvel successes. Huvel then asked Feige how close we are to a Marvel film with a female lead, given the “groundswell of demand in that direction.” Feige seems to merely grapple with the idea with no concrete goals in mind, giving us a disappointing response:
I think you’re right about that, and I think it comes down to timing, which is what I’ve sort of always said, and it comes down to us being able to tell the right story. I very much believe in doing it. I very much believe that it’s unfair to say, “People don’t want to see movies with female heroes,” then list five movies that were not very good, therefore, people didn’t go to the movies because they weren’t good movies, versus [because] they were female leads. And they don’t mention “Hunger Games,” “Frozen,” “Divergent.” You can go back to “Kill Bill” or “Aliens.” These are all female-led movies. It can certainly be done.
I hope we do it sooner rather than later. But we find ourselves in the very strange position of managing more franchises than most people have — which is a very, very good thing and we don’t take for granted, but is a challenging thing. You may notice from those release dates, we have three for 2017. And that’s because just the timing worked on what was sort of gearing up. But it does mean you have to put one franchise on hold for three or four years in order to introduce a new one? I don’t know. Those are the kinds of chess matches we’re playing right now.
So here’s my takeaway:
- It takes the right timing and the right story (the go-to excuse for all forms of procrastination)
- It’s not fair to dislike bad movies and then blame it on female leads. Not cool, guys.
- Kill Bill and Aliens were sweet, right?
- Golly, I sure hope I can wrap up this answer sooner than later
- We’re really busy right now with other shit
- Do you really expect us to just move that other shit around just to make room for a lady-movie franchise?
- Wait, should we move that other shit around? I don’t know. SOME1 PLS HALP.
Sure Marvel’s got a lot going for it right now, but I think the thing that bothers me the most is when people who oversee and dictate operations and have the power to make important decisions speak like they’re casting their fate to the wind. Nope, this is your responsibility, but thanks for trying to pass the buck to “timing” and “story.”
