Marvel Fires “Activist Producers” in Preparation for MCU Back-To-Basics Reboot, Report

in Disney, Marvel

Kevin Feige on the left, and Marvel Logo on the right

Credit: Inside the Magic

If you are a Marvel fan who thinks the company has “gone woke” and, therefore, “gone broke,” you may be in luck. An industry figure claims that studio president Kevin Feige has cleaned house and gotten rid of “activist producers” in preparation for refocusing on classic characters in a reboot.

Travis Scott and Kevin Feige with the Avengers in the background
Credit: Inside the Magic

Film Threat founder Chris Gore recently appeared on Critical Drinker After Hours and claimed that Marvel was essentially purging producers who have pushed the Marvel Cinematic Universe toward shameful wokeness, meaning characters who are not male or are people of color.

Chris Gore asserted that he knows “people who work at Marvel. They have cleaned house. They quietly, months ago, fired all the producers that could be labeled activist. […]Kevin Feige recognizes… basically, he said that ‘we tried it, it didn’t work. ”

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It’s an interesting claim, particularly since Marvel has increasingly been accused of pandering and “woke” identity politics in recent flops like The Marvels (2023) and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.

Whether or not Gore is correct in saying that Feige (and presumably his own boss, Disney CEO Bob Iger) is getting rid of the producers responsible for that shift, it is undeniable that Marvel has to do something to either defend or move away from that direction.

Monica Rambeau smiling enthusiastically, Kamala Khan (Ms. Marvel) in a tiara while waving and surrounded by confetti, Carol Danvers (Captain Marvel) in a gown on the singing planet
Credit: Marvel Studios

Gore continued, saying, “[Feige is] talking about Phase 4. It didn’t work. No Kang. None of these side characters that don’t have the legacy of classic characters.” He himself is referencing the segment of the MCU storyline from 2021 to 2022, which included both flops like Eternals (2021) and enormous hits like Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), as well as the kickoff of Marvel Disney+ series like WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Marvel is currently embroiled in Phase Five (don’t ask Jamie Lee Curtis about it), which is set to conclude its film run with the upcoming Thunderbolts* and its TV schedule with Ironheart. It has also prominently featured Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors) as the prospective post-Thanos main cosmic villain until the actor’s arrest and conviction for assault and harassment saw him fired by Disney and the character quickly written out.

Marvel star Jonathan Majors as Kang the Conquer
Credit: Inside the Magic/Marvel

Somewhat in line with Gore’s comment about “classic characters,” it does appear that Marvel Studios has made a hard pivot and is trying to woo back audiences by bringing back Robert Downey Jr., but this time as iconic villain Doctor Doom. It will be unclear how this works out for the company, given the immediate backlash, but according to (once again) Gore, that’s the general direction it needs to move in.

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Gore said, “If Deadpool & Wolverine proves anything, you’ve heard that phrase ‘male and pale is stale’—that was spoken aloud across studios, but if you look at box office this year, I would say male and pale is money. And that’s the phrase that I think people should more adopt.”

Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man
Credit: Marvel Studios

It can reasonably be inferred that, if Gore is correct about the activist purge behind the scenes at Marvel, the plan going forward is to focus once again on White male actors as the leads of the franchise, which must be a great relief for RDJ, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Pratt, Paul Rudd, Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Renner, Mark Ruffalo, Hugh Jackman, Ryan Reynolds, Tom Holland, Paul Bettany, Tom Hiddleston, and Benedict Cumberbatch.

As one could expect, there has not been an official announcement from Kevin Feige that he’s hunted down and terminated the “woke” producers, but we’ll just have to see what the future holds.

Do you think the MCU should go “male and pale?”

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