/Film Set Interview: 'The Avengers' Producer Kevin Feige

In June 2011, Marvel invited a handfull of journalists to the set of The Avengers. /Film was a part of this amazing visit to Albuquerque Studios (which you can read about here). While on set we participated in round table interviews with the cast and crew of the film. After the jump you will be able to read our interview with Kevin Feige,  producer of The Avengersand Marvel Studios head

Read our other interviews from The Avengers set:

  • Writer/Director Joss Whedon
  • Producer Kevin Feige
  • Mark Ruffalo, who plays The Incredible Hulk
  • Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans, who play Iron Man and Captain America
  • Q: So we've been waiting for someone to explain what the movie's about...Kevin Feige: Well, you see, there came a day... Well, what have people told you it's about? Come on. You've had two intelligent actors in here.Q: They've told us about their characters, but they don't know what to say...Kevin Feige: Well, you know, the movie as everyone knows, I think, is primarily about... An event occurs and we don't want to get into too much what the event is, but an event occurs that causes problems for Nick Fury, who runs this organization SHIELD. And I understand you've already been on the bridge set earlier today... If SHIELD was this organization that just stepped out of the shadows occasionally in other movies to see what was going on, in this movie, we're on the other side of that. In this movie, we're through SHIELD's point of view, this organization who's responsible for sorta taking care of the world and making sure everything runs smoothly and when a billionaire genius invents a suit of armor and blasts out of a cave, it's gonna get on their attention. And when a hammer falls into the desert, it's gonna get their attention. And when a green guy appears rampaging through Harlem, it's gonna get their attention. And if and when a super-soldier were to be discovered frozen in the ice, that would also get their attention. So it is sorta about seeing what a day in the life of Nick Fury is like and of this organization. And when such an event occurs, he is forced to take these people, who he's not really sure he can even handle individually and see if he can get them to come together and work together to stop this grave threat. So in a lot of ways, we're looking at it as a disaster movie. You know, the meteor or the piece of the meteor hits at the beginning of the movie and they spend a good chunk of the movie seeing if they can organize a team to go fight it. It's not my way of saying it's "Armageddon" — things could be worse — but it's my way of saying that's kinda the paradigm that we're looking at, is something horrible is going to happen if this team can't get together and fight against it.Q: [References to other movies and their ties to Nick Fury.] How much time has past before he's at the point where he can bring them together and try to create a team?Kevin Feige: Well, again, that's sorta what the movie's about. It takes a while over the course of the movie for that to happen. If you're asking how much time happened... I think we're saying it's a few... It's not definitive how much time has elapsed since "Iron Man 2" or since "Thor" or since "Cap," but we're saying it's probably six months to a year.Q: So at the beginning of the movie, it's not like Nick Fury has a problem and he calls The Avengers and they're already together in a room?Kevin Feige: Absolutely not.Q: So it's going to be about showing them assemble?Kevin Feige: Absolutely.Q: Will the events of "The Avengers" have a trickle down effect for any future stand-alone movies? Or do you view this as just like in the comics, where there was just an issue that could happen on its own and not really affect larger comic series?Kevin Feige: It's definitely the latter. We're looking to replicate that experience that a comic reader had, who loved reading his "Thor" issues and loved reading his "Cap" issues and loved reading his "Iron Man" issues and they always had their favorites and would argue about who's better and who would win in a fight and occasionally they would get together for an uber-event and then after that uber-event would go back into their own comic stories. So the story that Shane is developing now on "Iron Man 3," while it does not avoid any references to "The Avengers," is very much Tony is back in his world with his players dealing with his issues and is not going to pick up the phone and call Thor or Captain America or anything like that, necessarily. It's not that won't happen down the line. It could. But particularly with "Iron Man 3," year after "The Avengers," it's more about getting Tony back into his world.Q: After "Avengers" is out and you get to something like "Iron Man 3" or "Thor 2," does mean we'll be seeing SHIELD more, since the general public is going to know what SHIELD is and you're not going to have to set it up as much?Kevin Feige: Well, I think that the good news is that it's a tool in the toolbox. If screenwriters want it to have a purpose to serve... Frankly, I think SHIELD would be most relevant in a Cap sequel, because Thor has nine worlds to traverse and many, many supporting players and Iron Man has his supporting cast and many villains and plotlines to go through and Steve in the modern world sorta doesn't have an anchor and the anchor necessarily and the anchor we're establishing in this one is SHIELD. It's early days on "Cap 2," nobody's counting those chickens yet, but maybe there's some connection there.Q: Is there something you were able to do on this film that you haven't been able to do on ay of the solo films that you're really excited about?Kevin Feige: The first day that cameras started rolling, I kinda felt like it had actually happened. I was at Comic-Con in 2006 and somebody said, "Hey, I noticed that you have Captain America and Thor and Hulk and Iron Man within Marvel Studios. Do you think one day you could do an Avengers movie?" And I said, "Maybe someday. You know, it does make sense with all of those characters coming together." And the first day of production at the end of April, I thought, "Holy mackerel. It's actually here." And being on-set with all of them in costume is pretty astounding.Q: I feel like they've never really attempted this in a live-action film before. Do you feel a lot of pressure on the future of these kinds of films and the history that's being made with this film.Kevin Feige: Yes, but I feel pressure with every movie we make, every single one. Frankly, even not-Marvel movies I feel pressure on. Look at the movie that just came out recently and didn't perform the way people thought it would perform and all of the headlines are, "Oh, are people tired of the comic book genre? Is this the beginning of the end of the superhero genre?" So when there's a "Dark Knight," I go, "Oh, thank God. That's great." I want everybody to do well and continue to get people interested. So there's pressure on every one, even ones that aren't ours.Q: We've already had three superhero movies this summer with more coming. We're obviously not there yet, but does somebody need to consider the possibility of a short-term saturation at any point?Kevin Feige: You can until you look at next summer. Nobody's pulled the plug on movies that are in the works for that. My goal is that people judge all of them as individual movies, no just our movies as individual movies, which is very important, that they don't just feel like episodes in some grand "Avengers" saga, but frankly every movie. And some of the smarter articles, and maybe somebody in this room wrote it, but I read something that said that claiming that people are tired of comic book movies is like claiming that people are tired of movies based on novels or movies based on TV shows or movies based on any existing property. It's too broad a statement, it's impossible to really say.Q: If a romantic comedy tanks, they don't say it's the end of romantic comedies, or buddy cop dramas....Kevin Feige: To be fair, they do. To a certain extent, that's what Hollywood is all about and what Hollywood trades are about is that kind of Monday morning quarterbacking. That's the way a lot of studio executives work. "Who had the No. 1 movie? Look. We've gotta get this person." And if it didn't work, "Ew, that person's horrible, don't go near them." But I also think it's because it's so high profile. Look at the buzz and marketing leading up to "Thor," leading up to "X Men," leading up to "Green Lantern." So it's just a big target. That's a high profile.Q: Going back to "Avengers," how are you dealing with the Bruce Banner situation? You've had three movies, three Bruce Banners. New actor. Are you hoping "Avengers" might lead to Mark playing Bruce Banner is a new "Hulk" movie? Or do you feel like that's been done?Kevin Feige: Well, it's certainly been done already, but you wouldn't rule anything out and the deal we have with Mark certainly takes that into consideration. Joss' goal in this movie is to make the most beloved Bruce Banner since Bill Bixby and sort of unabashedly trying to achieve that. He's shot a number of scenes in this movie, including the scene that is his introduction into the movie, and we've seen it cut together and damned if it doesn't come close to doing that. You really feel for this guy. I don't know if you guys are going to see him while you're here, but he's just a tremendous guy, an great guy, and when you see the design of the character and how it relates to his facial structure and, for the first time, his performance, I think we're going to find a Banner and a Hulk combination that we haven't seen before. And, frankly, even more than Bixby and Ferrigno, because hopefully we're utilizing the technology as such that you can still see and feel Ruffalo in the creature.Q: Speaking of technology, can you talk about how you're approach 3D on "The Avengers" and you feel about it on future Marvel films?Kevin Feige: It's a film-by-film decision. 3D gets a bad rap for various reasons. It's a hard thing. It really is like... If there were some big, high-profile sound system that came out... If when SurroundSound came out however-many-years-ago, they charged you two or three bucks extra, well, when the speaker's buzzing, people are gonna get annoyed and, frankly, I've been in theaters were the speakers were buzzing and nobody even gets up to to complain about it and I go, "Am I really gonna have to be the one to get up and complain about this?" But that dark issue, which varies from theater to theater and varies from movie to movie and varies from projector bulb to projector bulb, people have paid extra money for that, so it's gonna get annoying if it's not done well, so I sorta understand that. I think "Thor" looked great in 3D. "Captain America," which is almost finished, looks great in 3D. I think "Transformers," which I've not seen yet, but my guess is it's gonna be awesome in 3D. And there are others that aren't worth is.Q: So is this going to be in 3D?Kevin Feige: This is currently in 3D.Q: So you're shooting in 3D?Kevin Feige: No, no, no. We're to turn it into 3D.Q: Was that decision by Joss, that he didn't want to mess with the technology?Kevin Feige: On "Cap" on "Thor" and on "Avengers," it was all filmmaker decision. It's an expensive proposition either way and it's an expensive proposition to mount the testing that we mounted on both, in particular, "Cap" and "Avengers." We brought in the cameras and shot a whole day on it. As a matter of fact, the scene at the end credits of "Thor" with Selvig and Nick Fury and the Cube and the suitcase, Joss directed that and that was our 3D test. We shot that with 3D cameras and after that day, Joss said, "No thanks."Q: You spoke before about the "event" that sets the film in motion. How long do you plan on keeping that under wraps before you reveal that?Kevin Feige: Uh, I don't know. Probably a little while. You can't hide much in trailers and things. As the materials start to come out and everyone knows that you've already met with Tom Hiddleston, so it may involve characters from other worlds wreaking havoc.Q: This is your first film with Disney, can you talk about how that has changed things at all, working for that big company?Kevin Feige: Well, it's actually the fourth movie with Disney, because we were just finishing "Iron Man 2" when this all happened, so we were officially part of Disney for the prep period and casting on "Thor" and prep and shooting and casting on "Cap." But it is the first one that they are marketing and distributing, so is true, which is sort of my way of saying that nothing has changed from "Iron Man 1" to now in terms of any sort of executive overlords mandating content on our movies. Paramount has done a spectacular job for us marketing and distributing "Iron Man," "Iron Man 2," "Thor" coming up on "Captain America" and Disney will have to rise to that challenge on "The Avengers." I think they can do it. I think they've done a tremendous job in the past on, you know, the "Pirates" movies and they know that it's a big responsibility to market it. I think there is a language that has been been developed on the Marvel Studios pictures through Paramount that I don't know how far we'll stray from. So it really comes down to, when you're talking about the poster, I'm meeting with different people now, when you're talking about the trailer and TV spots, you're meeting with different people. That's really all that's changed.Q: Do they have any sort of control? How do you decide on movies that get made? Is it on you? Or are they just distributing?Kevin Feige: The slate had been pretty well defined over the last few years. As we get into 2013 and 2014, they'll be part of that discussion. It's their money. So they'll be a part of that discussion on movies, but we haven't really had any of those discussions yet.Q: So that hedge fund that you guys started, that's out of the equation?Kevin Feige: That's been gone since two months after "Iron Man 1" came out.Q: Can we talk about Hawkeye. If you talk to anybody who's read the comic books, Hawkeye is really the core and the heart of the team. In this case, he's coming into it off of one scene in "Thor." He doesn't have any powers, he can just shoot an arrow...Kevin Feige: Do you think everybody would say that Hawkeye's the core and the heart?Q: I was curious about how he plays in this situation, where you have all of these known characters who have already been in movies and who have these powers and he's just a guy with a bow and arrow...Kevin Feige: Well, everyone gets an introduction into this movie as if they've never been in any other movie before. That is the way the movie is... This is a "Part 1." This has been a rallying cry and one of the reasons we wanted Joss to come on-board, is because he understood the characters and he understood the importance of the fact that... And frankly, he was not interested in doing a half-"Iron Man 3," half-"Thor 2," half-"Captain America 2," half-"Hulk Whatever." He was interested in doing "The Avengers: Part 1." So from the very first frame of the movie, this is "Avengers: Part 1," so all of the characters are introduced to the audience as if you've never seen them before. I guess we have the most leeway with Tony Stark who enters the movie, you could argue, like the celebrity that he is within that world, but also like the celebrity that he is to the moviegoing public as well. But other than that, they're all new characters coming into the story at certain points, and Hawkeye in the same way, right from the very open.Q: And how do the Skrulls factor into the film?Kevin Feige: The Skrulls are not in the film.Q: Are there any characters you guys go after in the film who maybe don't want to be part of the Avengers, who are there as Easter Eggs for the fans?Kevin Feige: You mean are there characters you don't know about?Q: Well, SHIELD goes after certain people to be in the group. Perhaps they go after certain people and they're rebuffed?Kevin Feige: Uh... It's not really like that. It's not like... "X-Men: First Class" had that great sorta recruitment scene. We don't... It's not like that, partially because there so many characters anyway. There are already so many characters to play with that I didn't want people just popping up for Easter Egg purposes.Q: Are you, I guess, more involved with some of the other movies like "X-Men?" Are you guys being more involved with those? Obviously, Fox and Sony must be seeing what a great job you're doing on your own. Are they kind of coming to you more for help with getting those things?Kevin Feige: It varies — I wouldn't say for help. I mean there's certain – there's some approvals or contractual agreements. And then, you know, I know a lot of the people there for many, many years. So there's that thing. It's more on the Sony side, on the "Spiderman" side with the new "Spiderman" film.Q: How much of a game plan do you have in place beyond "Avengers?" I know you probably can't tell us, but everything starting with "Iron Man" has led up to "Avengers" and we've all known about the plan.Kevin Feige: Sure.Q: Now it's like, we know "Avengers" is coming, but beyond that we don't know anything. Do you know?Kevin Feige: Well, "Iron Man 3," which you know – which has been announced. And then we haven't announced things yet, but we are thinking and plotting out towards 2015, which anybody in their right mind thinks it's a million years away and everybody in my company thinks it's, we're late! That's right around the corner! What are we gonna do?Q: How do you top something like this?Kevin Feige: You know, it's again — it's the same thing after how do we top "Spider-Man I," you know and after two years with the company, three years with the company I had the biggest weekend of all time and it's like I went, "Is this – is it – where do you go from here?" And we found a place to go and I think we'll continue to find places to go. Certainly now that the characters are established, like the comics continuing to tell those stories and then every few years bring them together again I think would be cool. And whatever happens there alters their dynamic as they go back into their own worlds and keep that going.Q: So "Avengers 2" is 2015? If we're piecing together the last five minutes of this conversation. I mean, is there a framework, you call it "Avengers, Part I" is there a framework you feel that you guys want to turn it to maybe a trilogy or...?Kevin Feige: Well, I mean, it's like managing any franchise. Two to three years usually is what makes the most sense. Depending what happens, it can be four years, but two to three years.Q: But you want to launch this as a next franchise from Marvel.Kevin Feige: "Avengers?"Q: Yeah, not just a one off kind of special thing.Kevin Feige: Yes. Yes.Q: Can we talk about the action set pieces in this film and comparing them to the previous films you've done. Do you feel that with this being the "Avengers" you need to have one set piece that are just "holy shit"?Kevin Feige: I think this being the "Avengers," we need to have three or four set pieces that are like that – frankly. So and that's what we are working on. It is by far the biggest budgeted film we've ever done. And, which is not to say – you know, which is still frankly less than what a lot of big movies like this cost, but it was a requirement. If you're going to have all these characters who have these giant spectacular sequences in their own movie, and need to get together for some reason, well it's got to be even bigger. It's got to be even more spectacular. You know, we, in planning the action scenes of the movie, we did the pre-viz and Joss — you know, frankly, he's done more pre-viz on this than any movie we've ever done. Not every frame of course, but certainly all the action scenes. And you watch them and you go, wow, that's giant. But how do you top that? You go, "We better top that because that's just – that's the, you know, third action scene of the movie. That's the middle action scene."Q: If I can actually say, well I brought up the action scenes, but I would, for me, and I'm sure for almost everyone in this room and all the fans out there, we're also just as excited to see Captain America and Tony Stark and the interaction between the characters. How much time did you spend to get that sort of dialogue just right and those scenes just right because that's almost just as important, if not more?Kevin Feige: Well, it is more important. And it's good because there are a lot of scenes with people talking in this movie. And because that's what we were, you know, the most interested in. You've got to have a spectacle on it; it's got to have – you need to have an epic event big enough to require all of them to come together. But the real interesting thing when they come together is their interactions. And frankly, the whole first half of the schedule has been nearly that. So had you been here the whole time for up to this point in the schedule, you'd think the whole movie is about people standing around talking.

    And you know, the great news is Joss was overseeing the people that were doing the boards and the pre viz, but he wasn't drawing them, he was writing all those words and all those interactions and all of that great dialogue. And it's why, you know, the harshest critics around, like Robert Downey, you know, he comes in every morning and goes, "Okay, now how am I going to tear this apart...It's pretty good. Pretty good." And you know, he'll (?) and he'll, you know, but that's Joss' strong suit.

    Q: Is this a disaster movie? I mean, have you been looking at any of the like, obviously Roland Emmerich and Michael Bay kind of have cornered the market on insanely, crazy disaster movies. Have you been trying to — are the set pieces kind of on that scale at any point or is it...?Kevin Feige: Well, you know, I don't want to give you the wrong idea that like it's on that scale necessarily from a natural disaster sense, but I would watch the trailers for those movies and go, boy, that spectacle was really cool. You know what would be cooler? If there were five of those guys right in the frame and got rid of that tidal wave. You know, we're not doing that, but I always thought that's the purpose of the "Avengers" is to be able to, you know, push back a force of that scale.Q: Can you talk a little bit about the word that's out today that you're not doing a presentation at Comic-Con. Just out of curiosity, what went in to that decision?Kevin Feige: You know, I think it's — my fear is it's spinning into a, "Oh, Marvel's abandoning Comic-Con; studios are abandoning Comic-Con," which is, at least in our case, is not the case at all, you know. You guys walked around the set today and you may have noticed that there were some big giant walls and pieces missing.

    So we're going to have a very big booth this year and, the biggest one we've ever had, with a ton of stuff going on there and there'll be various things outside of Hall H. It's just Hall H that we're not doing. We'll have a lot of other things going on. Cap is coming out that weekend and there'll be a few events going on to celebrate that and it's much more booth-focused this year in and around it.

    Because frankly, we didn't have access to everybody. And I thought, if I – well I'm gonna go, "Hey guys, remember last year we had everybody? Here's a few people." Because we're filming, because we're working on the movie and because, frankly, it takes two or three days away to go and do that or at least to prep and plan for that. And it's all full speed here and that's right about the time we'll be finishing up here and going to Cleveland to continue the – some of the outdoor action scenes.

    Q: Is there a runtime you're aiming considering how grand this film is and how many people are in it?Kevin Feige: We never really aim for a runtime necessarily. I mean, it's just whatever the end – whatever the movie ends up being. It's a long script, though.Q: Speaking of Cleveland, I am curious about what kind of outdoor stuff are you doing in the city? And are you sort of — are you gonna have superheroes in full costumes running around the city?Kevin Feige: Yes.Q: I'm curious about the casting over the years. Because obviously, when you've got Robert Downey it was a huge coup. It took a long time to find Chris Hemsworth, you know; Chris Evans is a natural, but I'm also curious about how you cast them knowing you'd want to put them together eventually. Have you been doing – had you done any kind of screen tests with them together, I mean, over the course of this whole process or...?Kevin Feige: We didn't. We did when we were doing auditions for the Maria Hill character, we had four or five actresses that came in and Sam Jackson was cool enough to come in that day and do all the scenes with that actress because, you know, Maria Hill's going to be standing next to him the whole movie or much of the movie. But other than that, we didn't, you know, just the timing of it, you know.

    And when we cast Hemsworth, we were shooting "Iron Man 2" and soon after we cast him I brought him on the set of "Iron Man 2" and introduced him to Robert and they started a sort of friendship there and camaraderie there, which I wanted to do early on, but we didn't have Cap until, you know, a year or so later and we didn't have Ruffalo until, you know, until a few months after that. So but you do, you say, okay, you need somebody. Look, the pressure of finding the guy for his own movie is bigger than anything else, anyway. So if you found a guy that fits for that movie and fits for that character, you're not going to hire somebody if you don't think they're strong enough to then also go toe-to-toe with the other actors in the "Avengers".

    So it was always in the back of our heads, but other than the Maria Hill instance, there wasn't sort of a mix and match screen test.

    [CROSS TALKING]Q: Was Maria Hill – is Maria Hill above Coulson or is she above Coulson. Is he kind of, they have they're like interplay between them 'cause...Kevin Feige: There is interplay between them, yeah. Yeah.Q: All right. And how much is the character in — 'cause she was sort of the last of the people cast, well after most the big announcements .Kevin Feige: I mean, it's not an insignificant part. I mean it's — she's got a lot of screen time.Q: On a visual level, you know, clearly when you're defining the look of Iron Man, the look of Thor, the look of Captain America for their own movies, that's really all you're concerned about. So when you're bringing them all together were there any sort of challenges in tweaking any of their individual outfits, you know, just to make sure that again on a visual level, the seven of them standing side-by-side looked like, yes, they are part of the team, they are part of the same world?Kevin Feige: Yeah. It's a good question. I mean it's the — James Chinlund who's our Production Designer in this movie, we brought on because he has a very unique style and a very unique vision and we wanted somebody who would do something completely different than in any of the other movies. And when you have the aesthetic that you've already seen walking around the bridge of the helicarrier, that's a whole other — you haven't seen anything like that in any of the other movies. So right away, the aesthetic of the film is its own.

    And we did – obviously, Captain America is going to have an updated costume for this movie. Tony's always tinkering with his suits so you can imagine that there'll be a few incarnations of the suit. Hulk essentially is that, you know, we're designing to the actor, so that'll be Hulk, but it will be slightly different designed Hulk than you've seen before. And with Thor and Loki, it's essentially their outfits from the previous movie, but we did want to rough and scuff it up a little bit in Loki's case, you know, he's dropped off into the abyss after all, who knows where he – what nether worlds he's been in, in between movies.

    And with Thor, we wanted to give him a few different looks. The one thing we actively avoided to that extent was saying we should probably take off his cape when he's walking around the helicarrier. So when he's in his Asgardian casual wear on earth and interacting with other characters, he doesn't have the metal sleeves, he doesn't have the cape and he doesn't have sort of the over armor, sort of the disk over armor piece. But again, we want all the characters to look cool on their own and Ryan Meinerding, who you've heard me talk about before is our great concept artist and sort of our lead visual designer for all the movies, did his first rendering of, okay, here's what they all look like in a frame. And it was awesome. Thank God.

    Q: Was it equally awesome the first day they all – everyone was in a scene together? I mean, you must have been nervous the night before, like are these guys going to be able to act together or with each other.Kevin Feige: Yeah, I wasn't that nervous. I mean, they're all great. I mean, it's all – they're all such good actors that – and Joss had delivered such great words for them to say that you're always nervous on the, you know, the day before you begin. But we had a few – they weren't all together on the first day. So it was sort of mixing and matching leading up to the time when they were all together for the first time. And it was great. And it was frankly what you wanted because it was, you know, the first time that the characters are interacting was also the first time the actors were interacting. So for a certain extent, we didn't want to do a boot camp where they all become chums and get to know each other and become a perfect well-oiled machine 'cause that's not what they are, you know, for a good chunk of this movie.Q: Is there a romance in this film or is it just all bromance?Kevin Feige:Well there's a lot of bromance going on, but I see, you know, Scarlett is in there, Maria's in there, it is – there is less of a love story in this movie than there have been in any of our other movies, yeah.Q: Is there any casualties – this is much bigger an epic than the other films. Is there any casualties in this? Are we going to see — are we gonna lose any of our beloved characters?Kevin Feige: Well, I mean, even if we were I certainly wouldn't tell you.Q: But I'm just saying, is there consequences?Kevin Feige: You know, frankly, it's something that I felt is important in movies, is to get those kinds of stakes and consequences whether it's death or injury or whatever it is. But there will be long-term consequences as a result of this movie, so it feels real. So it feels, like you know, I think that is – that's important. You know we've come close in a few of the movies to doing things like that and haven't necessarily and I think it's important to.Q: Where does this movie leave a space for like a Nick Fury movie or Black Widow movie or like even if it's a smaller budget movie because obviously you've got this huge scale movie. Can Marvel do a smaller scale movie without people going, oh it's not like the "Iron Man" or "Avengers" or...Kevin Feige: Well, I think so. I mean, you don't want to do something that seems like the "Avengers" movie without the Avengers. But you know, when you have Jeremy Renner and Scarlett Johansson, I mean, these characters own franchises at every studio. I mean, certainly. You know there is Jeremy Renner's "Hawkeye" movie that could be cool. There's a Scarlett Johansson "Black Widow" movie that could be cool. You know, is there, you know, if S.H.I.E.L.D. is an organization, it could easily be its own movie or TV show.Q: I think more of a Nick Fury, because obviously there's like a lot of stuff we don't know about him before S.H.I.E.L.D, yeah.Kevin Feige: Sure. So, I mean, all of that is on the table. Some of those things are more active than others.Q: The TV projects that would, that you guys are tossing around, I don't know what stage they're at, but would that be part of the shared universe?Kevin Feige: I don't think so.Q: So the ABC Hulk would be a different thing?Kevin Feige: Yeah.Q: What's the thinking behind that?Kevin Feige: Well, you know, the thinking behind it is there's enough going on with all the movies that we're developing to go into that and that "Hulk" series, you know, is sort of designed to be focusing on a different part of Banner's life and Banner's sort of journey. And frankly, it's not – you know, you don't want Clark Gregg and I don't want to call Clark Gregg you know every day and go, "And so Mr. Jackson, would you mind going down ...." I got to do this in movies.Unit Publicist: We're just going to wrap it up, so one last question.Q: You guys are partnering now with Disney/Pixar. Is there a desire on your end to work with Pixar to make, you know, a movie together?Kevin Feige: Well, I think the notion of an animated movie based off of a Marvel property is a no-brainer and it's something that we've been talking about. You know, Lasseter is now both Pixar and Walt Disney animation. So, you know, I don't where, whatever project would fall where necessarily. And frankly, Pixar is all about original properties and original ideas, but an animated version of one of our characters, one of our 8,000-plus characters would seem to be something that could happen at some point.Q: Where is Ant-Man? Wasn't that announced like way back, the very first ...Kevin Feige: I sat at Comic-Con 2006 with Louie Leterrier, Jon Favreau and...Q: And Edgar, yeah.Kevin Feige: Edgar. Yeah, he delivering a second draft in a few weeks, which I think has been my answer for five years.[CROSS TALKING]Kevin Feige: See you tomorrow. Thanks, guys.

    Read our other interviews from The Avengers set:

  • Writer/Director Joss Whedon
  • Producer Kevin Feige
  • Mark Ruffalo, who plays The Incredible Hulk
  • Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans, who play Iron Man and Captain America