Movie world’s booming Aussie love affair is a pure Marvel
In a rare interview, president of Marvel Studios Kevin Feige heaps praise on Aussie crews making Marvel movie magic during the pandemic.
Right before the pandemic shut everything down for the first time, one of the most powerful men in show business visited Australia for a short, but pivotal, trip. Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige landed in Sydney in February 2020 for “four or five days”, he tells The Australian. The presence of Hollywood’s highest grossing producer of all time — whose Marvel films have netted more than US$22 billion at the box office — was crucial. Feige was in town to oversee the commencement of production at Sydney’s Fox Studios on Marvel’s latest movie Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, the company’s first Asian-led superhero film and the 25th entry in what has become an epic, sprawling franchise.
“It was my last international trip, until recently,” Feige recalls. “I had a great time!” he adds, grinning. “I said, ‘I’ll see you soon! I’ll be back soon!’ Nope.”
Kevin Feige is one of the most influential creatives in Hollywood. As Marvel Studios president, he is responsible for one of the world’s most beloved film franchises. So when The Australian was offered the chance to speak to the man himself, in an ultra-rare one-on-one conversation about Marvel’s Shang-Chi, the answer was a very excited ‘yes’.
Shang-Chi was the first of two Marvel productions filmed in Australia in 2020; the second was Chris Hemsworth’s next superhero outing Thor: Love and Thunder, directed by Taika Waititi. Shang-Chi, a movie crafted from a rich history of Chinese storytelling and grounded in the traditions of Wuxia classics and martial arts films, brought stars Simu Liu of Kim’s Convenience fame, Awkwafina, Michelle Yeoh and Tony Leung to our shores. Later, Thor drew a cluster of A-list talent to Australia, including Natalie Portman, Christian Bale, Matt Damon, Chris Pratt, Jeff Goldblum, Dave Bautista and Tessa Thompson.
Most of them have departed because of the Covid outbreak — that also, cruelly, means that Shang-Chi can’t open as scheduled in the city where it was filmed — but Feige is looking at the bigger picture.
Shang-Chi had been scheduled to be made in Australia before the pandemic brought about a local production boom, but Feige said the experience had only strengthened his resolve to make more movies in Australia. “Of course,” he says when asked if Marvel would make more movies down under, teasing that the studio “may already be working on what our next ones will be”.
Feige adds: “We had a great experience up on The Gold Coast (with Thor: Ragnarok). Two great experiences there in Sydney.”
He is full of praise for the talented Sydney crew who worked on both Shang-Chi and Thor: Love and Thunder. “The teams are great, the crews are great, the support is great, the facilities are great,” Feige enthuses. But crucially, he adds, making Shang-Chi in Australia gave Marvel Studios the confidence that all of their future blockbusters could continue to be produced safely in this post-Covid era. “Shang-Chi was the first show we had to go down, but more importantly it was the first show to come back up,” Feige says. “It was the protocols that the team set there, and seeing how they could be followed safely that gave us the confidence to continue elsewhere and bring productions back to life in a safe and responsible way.”
Feige references a series of posts that Shang-Chi’s director Destin Daniel Cretton is currently sharing on Instagram, in advance of the film’s release in some Australian cinemas on September 2. “I never talk about social media but I will shout out … He is doing an amazing thing now that we should all do now, and that all filmmakers should do, showcasing every different department and every different crew member that brought this movie to life,” Feige says. Cretton’s posts have covered off everyone from stunt co-ordinators to lighting technicians, costume designers, camera crew and assistant directors. “I love it! I love seeing those people … and many of them are Sydney locals,” Feige adds.
Celebrating the people who make movie magic behind the scenes is partly why the famous Marvel post-credits scene exists, Feige explains. “The reason we started putting tags on the end of our films is because, I used to always sit through the end credits of movies and every once in a while there’d be something and I felt like wow, I got a special reward,” Feige says. “But really, I just wanted to see all the names and read all the names and see who was responsible for this thing that I love. What Destin is doing is a step above that in a really wonderful way.”
Marvel’s love affair with Australia is both behind the scenes and in front of the camera. Feige compares Shang-Chi star Simu Liu to Australia’s own Chris Hemsworth as Thor, one of the producer’s favourite star-is-born moments from his tenure at Marvel. In all of Liu’s “great auditions”, Feige shares that he embodied “equal parts charm and charisma, and everyday relatable person,” the unique and special combination that makes up a Marvel hero.
He continues: “Even when you have somebody like Chris Hemsworth, fellow Australian, who almost is a god amongst men, playing a character Thor who literally is a god … What’s great about Chris, what’s great about the stories that our early filmmakers told on that (first film) was taking Thor down to size … That becomes relatable: he had father issues, he had brother issues. The Marvel characters are always these flawed heroes who have to overcome those flaws to try to do the right thing.”
Feige remembers well calling Hemsworth on speaker, alongside the original Thor director Kenneth Branagh, to relay the news that the then up-and-coming Australian actor — and Home And Away alumnus — was about to become a Marvel superhero. Feige loves making those phone calls; he made a similar one, with director Cretton, to Liu back in July 2019. (He didn’t, however, get to make one to Spider-Man star Tom Holland. “(He) found out online before we were able to tell him, because it leaked,” Feige admits. “That’s not as fun.”)
Those phone calls “represent potential,” Feige explains. “Like, here it is, now let’s try to make it work. Then when it works, it’s also fun!” Feige has an eye for talent and an uncanny, and deceptively effortless, knack for getting casting exactly right. Marvel has made superstars of everyone from Hemsworth and Holland to Chris Evans and Tom Hiddleston. Liu, Feige predicts, is next. “Simu is in that area now, where people are watching the movie and people are responding to the movie, and his performance,” Feige enthuses.
Shang-Chi introduces Liu alongside an all-star Asian cast including Awkwafina, Michelle Yeoh and the great Wong Kar-Wai collaborator Tony Leung in his first Hollywood film. Getting Leung, Feige says, is a huge coup for Marvel. “I didn’t even think (it) possible,” Feige says. “He’s a legend unto himself … When his name came up, I almost didn’t believe it, really. It’s a testament to the story and to Destin that he signed up and has brought to life what I think is one of the most fascinating characters we’ve ever had in the MCU.”
Shang-Chi is a timely film about identity, family and what it means to be a hero, following Liu’s Shang-Chi and his best friend Katy (Awkwafina) as they travel from San Francisco to Macau in search of Shang-Chi’s estranged father (Leung). The character was on Feige’s list for potential projects dating all the way back to his earliest days at Marvel Studios, but it wasn’t until the completion of the Infinity Saga with Avengers: Endgame — the world’s highest grossing movie in history, bringing in more than US$2 billion at the box office — that production on Shang-Chi, Marvel’s first Asian-led superhero film kicked into gear.
Now, in a post-Covid world, where anti-Asian hate crimes increased by nearly 150% in the US in 2020, Shang-Chi’s tale of inclusion is more important than ever, Feige explains. “Driving around the country and seeing these giant billboards and giant posters and here in Los Angeles, on the side of giant buildings, (with) Simu as this amazing new hero — I hope sends a message,” Feige says. “A message beyond: Here’s a new movie coming out, go see it. I hope it sends that message too,” he adds. “But it has taken on an added importance.”
Shang-Chi is only the beginning for Marvel. Both in terms of this particular film franchise — “What’s fun in Shang-Chi is it’s not just the title character. There are many characters in this movie who are going to be important, going forward in future MCU movies,” Feige reveals — but also the broader Marvel Cinematic Universe, as it moves into its fourth phase of storytelling.
The studio is in a period of “new beginnings,” as the producer puts it, signalling the end of a “self-contained 23 movie storyline, which I still can’t believe that we did that, and it’s finished now,” and moving into a brand new, post-Endgame era. One that will launch a new multi-character series called Eternals, helmed by filmmaker Chloe Zhao fresh from her landmark Best Director Oscar win for Nomadland and starring Gemma Chan, Richard Madden and Angelina Jolie, as well as sequels for Doctor Strange, Thor, Spider-Man, Captain Marvel and Black Panther and, at some point, Mahershala Ali’s Blade reboot.
And there really is no end in sight. “I think it’s always the audience tells you when it’s over, or when it’s time to get off the stage,” Feige says. “I will say, the comics, they’ve been going for … 75, 80 plus years, telling multiple stories a month. And some of them are some of the greatest literature ever, some of them are so silly that you just put it down and don’t look at it again. But all of them face the challenge that we have, which is: How do you keep growing? How do you keep evolving? How do you keep changing?”
Even after 25 movies and a handful of television shows, Feige reveals that he is still asked when a particular character is going to make their first appearance, or when Marvel will tackle a fan favourite storyline. “And that’s astounding,” he enthuses, “and is a testament to the library of amazing characters that the writers and artists at Marvel Comics have been doing for decades.”
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is in theatres on September 2 wherever cinemas are open.