Kevin Feige Hopes that MCU Goes on Indefinitely

According to Marvel Cinematic Universe architect Kevin Feige, the franchise does not have any sort of endgame in mind—in fact, he’s hoping that it will go on for generations to come, like Star Wars or Star Trek.

“And that’s probably the way it should be as it gets passed down to future generations—parents take their kids and kids become parents, right?” he asked. “I’m a big fan of the Disney parks and those have been around for 60 plus years and the experiences keep being passed down the line.”

He made this interview with Uproxx as the franchise celebrates a major milestone—the release of Avengers: Infinity War, a film which it has been building towards for years now. Featuring an astounding 80 characters drawn from all the previous MCU movies, it will be followed next year by the untitled fourth Avengers movie, which will finish up Phase 3 and lead into Phase 4.

Feige admitted that the purpose of these film was “to have an ending–to bring a conclusion to 10-plus years, 22-movie narrative in a way that hadn’t been done before in this particular type of film,” Feige said, but added that “It doesn’t mean the MCU is coming to a close, by any means.”

He noted that the characters whom they make movies about, like Iron Man and Spider-Man, have been continuously evolving in the comics for decades, as have others like Batman or James Bond. As such, he sees no reason why the MCU cannot also keep going indefinitely, drawing from these new sources and evolving in its own ways as well.

Of course, one could argue that the franchise might become harder to work with the longer that it goes on—comic books can go on forever, but that is because they simply ignore the passage of time and/or make use of retcons and reboots; the MCU has tried to keep itself grounded, making such efforts harder.

On the other hand, as time goes on the franchise can replace its first crop of heroes, like Iron Man and Captain America, with newcomers from the comics; this is also noteworthy that X-Men and Fantastic Four are about to return to Disney’s hands. So the franchise still has quite a few years in it, at least.