Welcome to Star Wars, Kevin Feige
Kevin Feige has been announced as the latest player in Lucasfilm’s well-oiled, content-pumping machine, brought in under the guise of working on his own Star Wars project, in addition to the established trilogies from Rian Johnson and Game of Thrones guys. Considering fan responses to both The Last Jedi and the final season of Game of Thrones, I’m not sure it ‘s that simple.
Disney is in a kind of weird place when it comes to its Star Wars content. It has decided to cancel the underwhelming Star Wars Resistance and revive Clone Wars for another season on Disney+. Disneyland attendance is down overall, despite the opening of Galaxy’s Edge. Disney executives must be searching for how to reengage audiences.
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Enter Kevin Feige.
Kevin Feige’s time as the president of Marvel Studios has been wildly successful. After an uneven start, Marvel churned out hit after hit, culminating in Infinity War and Endgame. Disney has been fortunate to work with a variety of talented directors including James Gunn, Ryan Coogler, and the Russo Brothers, but Feige’s influence on these films can’t be ignored.
Feige managed to identify what worked well with Marvel’s films, namely a serialized cinematic universe delivered by one-liners, and bludgeoned audiences over the head with it.
And that’s not really a critique. Identifying characteristics that make a major property successful isn’t easy, and it’s even harder preventing that property from growing stale. Star Wars fatigue has become apparent (lookin’ at you Solo) and Kathleen Kennedy’s tenure has seen fan anticipation for Star Wars products teeter between excitement and indifference.
Whether that’s due to underwhelming content or a reckless release schedule doesn’t really matter. But with Disney+ in the batter’s circle, Disney won’t be able to stomach its endless Star Wars content becoming stale.
No such fatigue has taken place at Marvel Studios, despite its films trending towards formulaic and a relentless slate of releases. Feige will likely be asked to work some of that same magic, especially with the two mysterious trilogies by Johnson, and Benioff and Weiss on the horizon. It would be shocking if Kevin Feige is not a part of those filmmaking processes.
One of the biggest flaws of this final Skywalker trilogy has been the inability to properly connect plot-points between films. Some of that might have to do with two different writers and directors with their own separate ideas. It just so happens this is where Kevin Feige excels: Worldbuilding for serialized content by different writers and directors, while identifying what works for a given brand.
There is no reason for Lucasfilm to try to adopt the MCU’s tone in their films, no matter how bad Finn and Poe’s dialogue tries to emulate it. Feige shouldn’t even attempt it. The goal has to be to help develop a cohesiveness between films while identifying some semblance of consistency in style. Kevin Feige might be the perfect fit.
What are your thoughts on Kevin Feige joining the MCU? Let us know with a comment below.