Marvel Studios Crisis: Everything You Need To Know About The Creative Shakeup

When word broke earlier this month of Marvel Studios' Creative Committee's dissolution, was some of the most shocking news to come out of the company. By all accounts, the Committee has long caused creative strife within the company, with their constant oversight via notes and budgetary demands frequently deemed responsible, but this is even bigger than the previous creative issues they brought about, like Edgar Wright jumping ship on his long-gestating Ant-Man.

Working in this environment has been Kevin Feige, the man who has really been the face of the company as a whole ever since Marvel Studios entered the film-making game with 2008's Iron Man. In 2000, Feige served as an associate producer on Bryan Singer's X-Men, using the years that followed to rise up the ranks until he took the mantle of the fledgling Marvel Studios' President of Production in 2007. Under his guidance, Marvel Studios has taken over the world, raking in money and earning critical praise in film and television, setting up a bright future.

Despite their successes, however, it hasn't been smooth sailing thanks to the Committee's existence, with a number of creative minds having fallen out or voiced their disdain about being stifled beyond Wright, including Joss Whedon's publicised complaints about Age of Ultron's production and directors like Patty Jenkins and Ava DuVernay being deterred from projects over that old chestnut "creative differences." With its dissolution, Feige now has true freedom to oversee his Studios' projects without its influence. 

Here's what you need to know about the big shakeup...

While not much is known about exactly how big the Committee was, several of its members are pretty well-known individuals within the Marvel community. As BMD summarizes, the group consisted of at least "Alan Fine, who came with [Ike] Perlmutter to Marvel through Toy Biz, Brian Michael Bendis, who is a prolific Marvel Comics writer, Dan Buckley, publisher of Marvel Comics and Joe Quesada, former editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics and the current Chief Creative Officer of Marvel Enterprises."

In a nutshell, these are influential guys, all of whom are armed with their own opinions and beliefs. From conjuring up creative notes about which characters should be used, how they should be used, what the future should be, how this ties to that to even determining which set-pieces should be used, it's easy to understand why someone like Edgar Wright walked when everyone is trying to put their own creative stamp on each project, stifling any "fresh blood" that any given director could well and truly bring to the table.

Though Feige has long been the one doing much of the heavy lifting in the public eye, he's been at the mercy of the Committee and the man they report to: Ike Perlmutter. So now you may be asking...