The Journal. - With Great Power, Part 3: It’s All Connected

Episode Date: July 7, 2023

Meet Kevin Feige, the president of Marvel Studios and the man who weaves all its films into one cinematic universe. The idea proves so popular that Feige becomes the most successful producer in modern Hollywood history. Meanwhile, rival DC Comics launches its own cinematic universe, led by director Zack Snyder. But can DC’s “Justice League” match Marvel’s “The Avengers”? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Previously on With Great Power. on Disney's radar, our radar screen for quite some time. He said, can you believe they're serious about maybe buying Marvel? I was afraid of DC. You know, their model was hiring final cut directors. And sometimes that works. You get a Chris Nolan movie. But with Marvel Studios, we needed directors and talent that wanted to be part of a team.

OK, I'm walking into the bar. Marvel Trivia is starting. Do you have a Hefeweizen? Okay, let me have a... I'll have a draft of that, please. I'm in a brew pub in L.A., sipping a beer. I'm surrounded by strangers. But they're also my kind of people. It's trivia night for a bunch of comic book and film geeks.

We're here tonight because it's Marvel Trivia Night. Everybody breaks up into teams. The Dark Moon Knights did get that one. Good job, Dark Moon Knight. The Dark Moon Knight. That's my team name. Well, actually, it's not much of a team. I'm playing solo. I mean, me alone against these teams of three or four people, my odds are not very good, you know?

I just don't want to come in last place. For a little while, I'm holding my own. What Marvel show explores alternate timelines of the multiverse in which major moments in the MCU happened just a little bit differently. What's the name of that show? Alright, I got this one. It's the anthology series What If? But then, the questions get tougher

and I start to flounder. After the Battle of New York, the Avengers assemble at a restaurant to eat what food? What villain is the primary antagonist of Ant-Man? What does Ned call his grandmother? What is the name of the metal that in Thor, Love and Thunder, who does Thor impale with his own thunderbolt

before stealing the weapon? His own thunderbolt. Oh. Uh, what is his father's name? It may not be his father, but that's my guess. By now, I'm in last place. Of course, I am playing solo. But also, if I'm honest, I've always been a bit more of a DC guy. Before I came to this pub, I joked about wearing my Green Lantern t-shirt, my Flash shirt or my Riddler shirt. But I thought better of it.

I did find a fellow DC fan here, Fabian Lucero. But he's just not feeling DC's movies these days. They fell behind with like what Marvel was doing. So then when they were playing catch up, like they just threw everything all at once

without like creating the story and for each of the characters. For me, DC, I don't have faith in a lot of the stuff they do. I get it. For the past decade, DC has been chasing Marvel's success at the box office. No wonder this bar isn't hosting a DC trivia night. So how did Marvel get so far ahead of its biggest rival? It all comes down to two things.

A big idea ripped straight from the pages of the comics. And a studio chief with a vision to pull it all off. vision to pull it all off. From the Journal, this is With Great Power, The Rise of Superhero Cinema. I'm Ben Fritz. This is Episode 3. It's all connected. Summer is like a cocktail.

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Marvel Studios is built around a big narrative idea, which we'll get to in a bit. But first, you need to know about the man who makes it happen. The man who runs Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige. A lot of Marvel fans know him as the dorky guy with the dad energy. Hi there. Hi there. Hi. It has been too long since we've done this. Who walks red carpets wearing a ball cap. And we have to talk about the hat. Yeah, there you go. We have to talk about the hat, your tradition. Yes. I'm bald, so I wear a hat a lot. Heck yeah! That's the way to do it. Kevin Feige is the president of Marvel Studios. And whether you measure by box office or cultural influence, he's the most successful producer in modern Hollywood history.

Feige has produced every film Marvel Studios has released. I talked with a lot of people about him, and they all agreed about one thing. Before Feige was assembling the Avengers for the big screen, Kevin just lived, ate, and breathed Marvel stories. He was absolutely

the perfect executive with the perfect knowledge and the perfect understanding of what all of these characters needed. He loves movies. He loves movies. He sleeps, eats, drinks, loves, you know, he loves all movies. I think Kevin Feige is the ultimate embodiment of a guy who really respects comics. Kevin Feige has multiple billions of dollars more of box office than any other producer ever. And people don't talk about that enough. Feige doesn't typically answer questions about Marvel's business, so I wasn't surprised when Disney said he wouldn't sit down for an interview with me. But he has talked publicly

about how he got started in the movie business. It began in the 90s when Feige was admitted to the University of Southern California's film school. He had to apply six times. He finally got in and soon realized all the smart kids were going after internships. And one day, he was hanging around a campus office when he noticed a flyer. Feige described this moment to the New York Film Academy. And I walked in and saw Donner, Schuller, Donner Productions. Richard Donner, of course, did Superman, Lethal Weapon, Goonies.

And I just like, the room got dark and a spotlight was on that. And I literally like tore the number off. That number was for a production company run by Richard Donner and Lauren Schuller Donner. Richard was a big director. Lauren was a well-known producer. So Foggy typed up his first ever resume, and he soon landed an internship working with the Hollywood power couple. Hi, it's Ben French from the Wall Street Journal. A few months ago, I went to visit Lauren,

who was Kevin's first Hollywood mentor. Her office is brimming with memorabilia, like the Crypt Keeper puppet from Tales from the Crypt. That scared me. The Crypt Keeper scared me. And posters from films that she produced. Right in front of the X-Men Days of Future Past poster. X-Men First Class, X-Men.

And you've got mail. Thank you for agreeing to do this, first of all, Lauren. I really appreciate it. It's my pleasure. Talk about Kevin. I wanted to know what Foggy was like before he became arguably the most powerful person in the film business. We heard that you, um, did you make him buy a suit and get a haircut at some point? No, I bought him some clothes. He dressed like a slob. How did he usually dress? You know, he just, kind of an old shirt. Mine have not been washed.

One thing Feige noticed about Lauren was that as a producer, she was always busy. In a podcast interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Feige said he admired directors, but noticed that they often sat idle between gigs. And Lauren was always producing movies or developing movies. And the people that had worked for Lauren were being moved up into positions with more, you know, creative input. So Feige absorbed everything he could while working for Lauren, first as an intern, then as her personal assistant. He traveled with Lauren to film shoots, walked her puppy around the studio lot, and taught Meg Ryan how to use email on the set of You've Got Mail.

Most importantly, though, Feige gave notes on scripts. That was a big deal when Feige saw a new screenplay in the office one day. It was for X-Men, based on Marvel's team of mutant superheroes. In the 90s,

Marvel sold the X-Men film rights to 20th Century Fox. Lauren was producing the movie, and Feige was geeking out. We were always

open to notes. I think he right away impressed me as somebody who knew the world better than I did. He understood how to make a movie and then brought his whole knowledge of the X-Men world. During production, Feige was an on-set expert. He knew characters like Wolverine, the tormented mutant with the wild hairdo

and retractable claws, played by Hugh Jackman. And in the 90s, in Hollywood, that degree of geek wisdom wasn't exactly typical. Other people on set started to pay attention to Feige. People like Marvel's Avi Arad, who we met earlier in the series. Avi was an executive producer on X-Men. We met earlier in the series. Avi was an executive producer on X-Men. And Kevin was a guy that I can call and say,

I just saw the hair on Wolverine. Do you agree that it's weird? He said, yes. So let's do something about it. Soon, Avi wanted to poach Loren's fanboy assistant for himself. So as production was wrapping on X-Men, Lauren got a call. It was Avi. Do you remember when Avi first approached you

and said, I want to hire Kevin Feige? Yes, I do remember him saying, I would like to steal Kevin. I said, listen, I think Kevin is a diamond in the rough. And what he needs to do is go make movies. He cannot babysit puppies. He's too intellectual, too brilliant, too hardworking. He comes to set, he knows what he's doing.

I mean, to be really honest, it was like, oh, it was a real gut punch. On the other hand, it was totally obvious. It was where he belonged. It was where he was born for. And I, of course, said yes. In 2000, Avi hired Feige, who became his shadow on all parts of Marvel Productions. At first, Feige drove Avi to meetings and carried his bags. And over time, he went on to become one of Marvel's most successful creative executives. Eventually, Avi says he pushed to give Feige a big promotion. And in a board meeting, I say to them, time to make Kevin the president. And it was time. He was ready.

Because he's a very sophisticated learner. That promotion came in 2007. As Marvel started shooting Iron Man, Feige was now the studio's head of production. And he soon started

to execute a master plan that would end up becoming Marvel's calling card. A so-called cinematic universe. It was the idea of a shared narrative linking every movie. No studio had ever had superheroes star in their own movies and then all join together in one mega movie. Foggy teased that idea at San Diego Comic-Con in 2006, two years before Marvel's first film came out. And you put them all together, there's no coincidence that that may someday equal the Avengers. I think just having that possibility on the horizon

is something that excites all of us. Comic book fans loved it, but this concept of cross-linked narratives went against most Hollywood studio executives' instincts. The interwoven storytelling might prove too complicated for anyone but dedicated fanboys and fangirls. If being into Captain America meant you also had to see Thor and Avengers, wasn't there a risk average moviegoers would just skip them all? Wasn't there a risk average moviegoers would just skip them all? And I know that a lot of us, including Kevin,

that was the goal is can we manifest this crazy dream all the way to an Avengers movie, which seemed impossible at the moment, both technically and, you know, just seemed crazy. That's Marvel Comics writer Brian Michael Bendis. The idea of interconnected movies started small, with one scene. It was to run after the credits in Iron Man. Kevin Feige needed someone to write that scene,

so he turned to Bendis. I got an 11 o'clock at night call from Kevin, which was appropriate, and said, hey, tomorrow Samuel L. Jackson is doing somebody a huge favor and coming in to do a cameo. And I literally thought he was just calling to go, can you believe it? And I went, oh, that's amazing.

And he goes, yeah, we actually don't have anything for him to say. Do you have a minute to like jot some shit down? Ryan's assignment was to write a few lines for Jackson's character, Nick Fury, the spy chief who brings the Avengers together. It's like I wrote like any to be continued idea you could possibly think of for Iron Man and Nick Fury. And it's like three pages of one-liners. And I stayed up all night because I was so excited.

I was just enjoying it. And then I handed it in. And I think like a day later, I got, oh, that worked out great. And I go, did Samuel L. Jackson actually say stuff? And they go, yeah, yeah, it worked. Easter egg after Iron Man, so he stayed in his seat until the end of the credits. And that scene he caught? Though it runs just 36 seconds, Reggie remembers it exactly. And at the end of Iron Man 1, we have Tony Stark returning home. Jarvis. Welcome home, sir. And he sees a silhouette, and it is a figure that starts speaking to him. You think you're the only superhero in the world?

It is revealed that it is Nick Fury. Who the hell are you? Nick Fury, director of S.H.I.E.L.D. I'm here to talk to you about the Avenger Initiative. When fans like Reggie saw that scene, they freaked out. This was completely unexpected. What this does is it just opens up the question of where is all of this going? Who is he alluding to that, you know, there's other superheroes out there. What might happen next?

And what happened next? More clues. Breadcrumbs sprinkled throughout every Marvel movie, suggesting that they were all connected. Like Iron Man showing up at a bar in The Incredible Hulk. If I told you we were putting a team together, it was we. A Hawkeye cameo in the first Thor movie. You better call it, Coulson, because I'm starting to root for this guy. The discovery of Thor's hammer in Iron Man 2. So, we found it.

And Iron Man's dad creating Captain America's shield. Vibranium is stronger than steel and a third the weight. And when those storylines climaxed all together in one big movie, 2012's The Avengers, the payoff was huge. The power surrounding the cube

is impenetrable. Thor's right. We've got to deal with these guys. How do we do this? As a team. It turned out that average moviegoers weren't turned off by the complexity. They were drawn in. The Avengers wasn't just a blockbuster. It crushed records. Avengers opened this weekend and it took in more than 200 million dollars in just three days. They're on track to

break a huge record. The Avengers is slated to top $1 billion in sales worldwide this weekend. Avengers grossed more than $1.5 billion. It was the biggest superhero film ever, and the third highest grossing movie of all time, after Avatar and Titanic. Four years after its first movie, Marvel Studios was officially

the hottest company in Hollywood. And it was all thanks to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel's success set every other studio in Hollywood back on its heels, especially Warner Brothers, a longtime owner of Marvel's arch rival, DC Comics. Just a few years earlier, DC ruled the box office with The Dark Knight. Now, Marvel was number one,

and DC had to play catch up. So DC decided to build a cinematic universe of its own. But doing so would turn out to be a lot harder than Marvel made it look. That's After The Break. Need a great reason to get up in the morning? Well, what about two?

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Benefits vary by card. Terms apply. At the world premiere in 2016 of the DC film Suicide Squad, director David Ayer took the stage. You don't expect that a movie will change you in this one, did it? The audience of DC Diehards was amped up. Suddenly, a lone voice from the crowd shouted an expletive. F*** Marvel! F*** Marvel! F. Marvel.

Ayer apologized after the screening. He later tweeted, quote, Someone said it, I echoed. Not cool. It was a cringey moment, but one that captured the frustrations of filmmakers on Team DC. Decades after Christopher Reeve convinced the world a man could fly in Superman, and Michael Keaton terrorized the underworld as Batman, DC's filmmaking prowess had fallen back to Earth.

And I want to spend a little time here explaining how that happened. DC has been owned by Warner Brothers since the 60s, and it has the best-known superheroes in the world. So, why didn't DC's cinematic universe take off the way Marvel's did? I asked the woman who spearheaded DC's business for nearly a decade. So, the first thing we're asking everybody is, would you just kind of do a brief introduction of yourself? Yeah. Hi, I'm Diane Nelson. I was president of DC Entertainment from 2009 until 2018. And I was at Warner Brothers for about 22 years, inclusive of that nine-year run at DC.

A few years into Diane's tenure at DC Entertainment, the whole world was talking about Marvel. The Avengers, Iron Man, Guardians of the Galaxy. Not DC's iconic characters like Batman, Superman, or Wonder Woman. That, I imagine, must have been frustrating at times to see or know. Yeah, no, well, sure. Certainly there was an undercurrent of frustration that we were not hitting the mark. DC was looking for a plan to match Marvel's success. The thing is, unlike Marvel Studios,

DC Entertainment didn't actually make movies. There was no powerful producer like Kevin Feige on the DC side. Instead, Diane's DC division played an advisory role, while the Warner motion picture executives called the shots. We were not a standalone studio the way Marvel was. They were a freestanding studio with their own production budgets, their own production staff. They were really charting their own courts and they did an amazing job of it. The fans assumed that we at Warner Brothers

were replicating the organizational structure of Marvel. In fact, we did not. And it was quite intentional. So obviously, as you said, people, you know, a lot of fans or people in the outside world didn't understand how this worked. But what about internally? I don't know that there was an appreciation for the extent to which the DC team was really just have a seat at the table. We would have the heads of each of the relevant businesses and DC to talk about DC related issues, including our slate of films and TV shows and video games and so forth. But DC was not the ones leading that charge.

And honestly, I'm not sure there was anyone leading that charge. It just wasn't the culture of Warner Brothers to dictate a particular strategy. We reached out to Warner Brothers, and a spokeswoman declined to comment. Warner Brothers had always been a filmmaker-first studio. And for a long time, it considered Christopher Nolan to be its superhero guru. His Dark Knight Batman trilogy was a crown jewel

for the company. It had a mature tone and huge receipts at the box office. Nolan approached Batman in a cerebral way. Here's Nolan in an interview with the BBC in 2016. You can really tap into the collective fears that we have as a society,

and particularly in the case of Batman, you have the opportunity through his environment, through Gotham, to really offer a very dark reflection of the society we live in. Former Warner execs told me that after the Dark Night trilogy ended in 2012, they were banking on Nolan to make more

superhero films. Maybe he'd direct Superman. Maybe he'd even bring the DC super team Justice League to the big screen. So they waited for Nolan. And waited. But eventually, Nolan decided to take a back seat. He agreed to produce a

Superman reboot and anoint another filmmaker to direct it. Here's Nolan at the Santa Barbara Film Festival talking about it around that time. I mean, what I'm doing on that is I've hired a great director to take it on. It's sort of more his problem than mine, hopefully.

Enter Zack Snyder. Superman's pretty awesome, as you know. Snyder was Nolan's pick to direct 2013's Superman relaunch movie, Man of Steel. Snyder talked about it at Comic-Con the year before. You know, Superman, it's a big responsibility, but I kind of felt like, you know, Superman needed to sort of be reintroduced to, like, a generation. And I thought this was a great opportunity to do something awesome. Snyder was a successful director who specialized in comics and horror films.

He drew big audiences with his war epic, 300. This is Sparta! with his war epic, 300. This is Sparta! He was a visual stylist who relished each kill and compound fracture. But Snyder's ultra-violent aesthetic also made him polarizing.

A lot of fans and critics had a big problem with Snyder's take on Superman in Man of Steel. They were outraged over the violence, including a scene where Superman, the defender of truth, justice, and the American way, snaps a villain's neck. Some fans were shocked and confused. It's just, it's not Superman. And of all the comic book characters, the one that has an absolute commitment to a code against killing is Superman.

What are we watching? What is this? You know, and then all of a sudden everything was just dark and everything was serious and everything was like, yeah, dark, serious. Yeah, dark and serious. And I'm sitting, I was in the theater and I was like, what the hell am I watching right now? I was sitting there and I was like, literally, what is this? So. literally what is this? Man of Steel took the Superman myth very seriously. What would it really be like if an alien with godlike powers landed on Earth?

It was a stark contrast to Marvel style, which liberally sprinkles in-jokes and goofy antics between the comic book action. One Snyder fan told me why she loved his approach. It's grounded in a way that makes the audience look at themselves as if to say, what would happen if these mythical superheroes existed in a world that's as close to a parallel as our own as can be? Man of Steel was pretty big at the box office. Not Marvel big. But Warner decided it was big enough to use it as a springboard for a new cinematic universe.

One that would compete with Marvel Studios. But it didn't announce the plan the way Marvel typically did. For Marvel, announcing a new film slate was a spectacle, presided over by the studio's high priest, Kevin Feige. Here he is at Comic-Con in 2014. Please welcome the president of Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige. Good morning. Thank you. Thank you very much. The buildup to Warner's big DC announcement that same year was a bit different. It took place at an investor meeting.

Welcome back. Before I turn it over to Kevin Tsuchihara, CEO of Warner Brothers, let's take a look at the exciting things happening at Warner's. Instead of revealing DC's new slate of movies to people who'd be most excited, the fans, Warner's CEO broke the news to Wall Street investors and analysts. And it wasn't exactly a thrilling presentation. We plan to massively expand our production by releasing at least 10 movies beginning in 2016, not even counting standalone Batman and Superman movies that we're also working on.

First in 2016, Batman vs. Superman. When Marvel announced the slate, those films were usually well along in development. They pretty much all came out as planned. But DC's slate was more aspirational. And Diane says there was nobody whose sole job was to make it a reality. The idea of a slate just felt like window dressing. The bottom line is there was never a thoughtful, well-controlled, confidential slate process. And I think it's the single biggest thing that made us look amateurish, certainly relative to Marvel, if not just on its own. amateurish, certainly relative to Marvel, if not just on its own. Right. I guess what you're saying is that it's not like these scripts were done and this was a really fully thought out plan.

Oh, far from it. Some of the films announced at the investor presentation, like Green Lantern and Cyborg, never materialized. Warner's CEO announced the movies, but the responsibility to make them largely ended up in the hands of Zack Snyder. By 2016, he had set the tone for DC's two most famous superheroes, with Man of Steel and Batman v Superman, Dawn of Justice. Both films were serious, and somber, and very violent. and somber and very violent. Some fans love them, but others started calling Snyder's movies the DC murderverse. Unless there were meetings that happened that no one told me about,

which is possible, I don't know that there was ever any conversation where it was decided that Zack would be leading the DC slate for any particular period of time. So even if it wasn't a conscious decision that Zack Snyder was our Kevin Feige, that, you know, from a consumer standpoint, that's kind of what happened for a while there. There's a place for Zack's movies, and I would have always wanted Zack to be a part of the DC filmmaker lineup. But should he have been the one defining that universe? Maybe not, in hindsight. You know, hard, hard questions. Still, for better or for worse, Snyder was de facto in charge.

And he was about to set the DC universe in stone with its biggest superhero movie yet, Justice League. DC's team-up movie was set for 2017. It would unite the company's marquee characters, Batman, Superman, The Flash, Wonder Woman, Cyborg, and Aquaman. Expectations were big.

The epic ensemble film would be DC's answer to Marvel's Avengers. Here's Snyder talking about Justice League on a podcast called Pizza Film School. And the studio was very, they wanted Justice League, what was where we were going. And so. So you knew you had the connective tissue. We always had our eye on the Justice League kind of concept, you know, as we were, as we were working. But before Justice League started shooting in 2016, Warner executives had some concerns. The negative reaction among many fans to Snyder's so-called murderverse put them on edge.

Some studio executives seriously considered pushing back production of Justice League and replacing Snyder. But they decided it would be too difficult to revamp their Justice League plans at the last second. So they kept Snyder. They asked for a rewrite of the script, though. I saw a copy of one of their memos. It said Justice League needed to be lighter in tone. Quote, Let's have more fun with the characters. The studio also asked to cut a plot involving Batman's alter ego, Bruce Wayne,

and Superman's girlfriend, Lois Lane. Quote, Let's eliminate Bruce sleeping with Lois and getting her pregnant. It has the potential to be very badly received. End quote. Despite those changes, when Warner executives saw Snyder's first rough cut, they were not happy. We reached out to Snyder for this podcast, but he declined to comment. Here's Diane Nelson again. There was a desire to ensure that the movie was not too long and that there was opportunity for more heart and humor.

And then, oh, you know, we're going to bring in another director to help. Another director. But not just any director. Joss Whedon. Whedon was known for mixing humor with action. But the thing he really had going for him? Joss Whedon was known for mixing humor with action. But the thing he really had going for him? Joss Whedon directed Avengers, the very movie whose success DC was looking to replicate.

My characterization is Joss was a bit of a shiny penny during a time when they were looking for something shiny to grab onto. After the bulk of filming on Justice League ended, Whedon began helping with rewrites. That soon escalated to being present for reshoots. Then, in the spring of 2017, Snyder stepped away from Justice League following a family tragedy. Whedon took over the reshoots himself. One movie, two very different directors.

One movie, two very different directors. When Justice League hit theaters in November 2017, fans like Anthony Amesta were perplexed. You could definitely tell the difference between Whedon and Snyder and their style. It felt like a sandwich of a movie. It was just kind of a mess. Another DC fan, Matthew Luarcus, thought the Whedon-Snyder clash of tones on Batman was especially weird. There was a lot of mishmash and bits and bobs.

Batman is very gritty. How many of you are there? Not enough. And then you jump right into Batman is some, like, goofball. I think at some point what really bothered me is there's a scene in the film where you get Superman flinging Batman into a car. And Batman goes on to say... Oh, yeah. Oh, something's definitely bleeding. Something's definitely bleeding, and it's just so conflicting.

That's not Batman. It wasn't just the fans complaining. Ben Affleck played Batman in Justice League, and often champions Snyder's work. But he told the press that production on the mashup film was, quote, awful. Here he is in an interview with GQ. Sometimes things sort of work in jail, and sometimes they just, you know, you seem to be just having one problem after another, you know.

Several Warner Brothers executives, including Diane, were displeased with the movie. Yeah, I mean, I thought the final film was terrible. was terrible. Yeah, I mean, I would have much preferred a darker than I wanted or longer than I'd hoped for Zack Snyder cut than the Frankenstein cut we got in theaters. The Trinity characters of Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman should have, by any measure, blown any other superhero movie away. And they didn't. Justice League roughly broke even, according to a former studio executive. But it was a huge disappointment for Warner Brothers, given the movie's nearly $300 million budget and sky-high expectations. Justice League was supposed to be DC's Avengers-style apex. Instead, it was a debacle. DC's dream of a cinematic universe to rival Marvel's had flopped. At a charity event in April,

Zack Snyder said his critics failed to understand what he was trying to accomplish with his DC films. I think, and maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like a lot of guys, or a lot of people, went into the movie sort of going like, oh, it's the superhero romp. Right. Let's have fun with it. Right. You know? And we gave them this sort of hardcore deconstructivist, like, heavily layered, like, experiential,

like, superhero,, like, superhero, modern mythological superhero movie that needs a real, you really need to pay attention to it, and that was not cool. That's not a thing anyone wanted to do. Warner did have some successes making DC movies with other directors. Wonder did have some successes making DC movies with other directors. 2017's Wonder Woman was a hit with fans and critics.

2018's Aquaman grossed more than $1 billion. So did 2019's Joker. And its star, Joaquin Phoenix, won an Oscar. But overall, DC's output was spotty, with at least as many flops as hits. The best-known superheroes in comics couldn't save them. What do you think, looking back, were the positives and negatives of this setup for DC Entertainment? There are so many things I would do differently. I certainly think that DC would have benefited, the company would have benefited much more strongly had DC been its own entity, independent entity with its own ability

to mandate and set a slate and a vision for its properties. Whomever ran it, it needed to report to the CEO, and it, I believe, should have been set up independently the way Marvel was with its own budgets and so forth. Feige and Marvel had made the cinematic universe look easy, but DC's struggles showed that execution mattered more than the best intentions and the best-known characters. Even a DC fan like me had to admit it. Marvel had won this round in the clash of the cinematic universes. But inside Marvel, it wasn't exactly a time of celebration. But inside Marvel, it wasn't exactly a time of celebration.

Because even as the studio dominated the global box office, internally, it was descending into a civil war. A war between creative mastermind Kevin Feige and his budget-minded boss, Ike Perlmutter. Their power struggle would change the course of Marvel's future. It got to the point where Kevin Feige started to get pretty annoyed, and he would push back. And there was a sense that something had been ripped out. This family had been separated.

It was like a divorce. Effectively like a divorce. That's next time on the final episode of With Great Power. With Great Power. John Sanders, Pierre Singhi, and Catherine Schuchnigt. The series is edited by Catherine Brewer and Annie Baxter. Fact-checking by Najwa Jamal and Nicole Pasulka. Sound design and mixing by Griffin Tanner. The music in this episode is by Bobby Lord,

Peter Leonard, Griffin Tanner, Blue Dot Sessions, and Epidemic Sound. Our theme music is by So Wiley and remixed by Nathan Singapak. Special thanks to Maria Byrne, Kate Leinbaugh,

Annie Minoff, Laura Morris, Sarah Platt, Sarah Rabel, Ethan Smith, and Catherine Whalen. And shout out to Native Son in LA for letting us record

Marvel Trivia Night. Thanks for listening. Check out the next and final episode in our series coming out Sunday. And when I think back to my younger years, my pining in college and high school and what I felt and how I was the only person that liked any of this. Yeah. I was like a jazz officiant. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, like, yeah. So and now it's it's it's everywhere yeah if we could only be in high school now we'd be so much more popular than we were right i doubt it i'm sorry i was thinking about that thought no no it would have been the same