This summers Avengers: Age of Ultron and Ant-Man marked the end of the second phase of movies within Marvel Studios much coveted MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe). While this second phase of movies brought us record breaking movies such as Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy, this summers releases, and Thor: The Dark World and Iron Man 3, while sucessful in the box office did show a distinct drop in creativity in comparison to the movies that made up Phase One. This is no doubt due to the well publicized production problems that plagued Ant-Man and Thor: The Dark World, as well as Josh Whedons tales of exhaustion and woe during production on Avengers: Age of Ultron, of which it appears according to recent reports that Marvel Entertainments "Creative Committee" is ultimately to blame.
The committee, comprised of executive Ike Perlmutter, writer Brian Michael Landis, publisher Dan Buckley and Marvel Enterprises chief creative officer Dan Quesada have proved instrumental in revitalising the comic books with the introduction of new Spider-Man Miles Morales and the all new Secret War being prime examples. But it appears their "creative input" into the MCU has led to the stifled creativity witnessed in the MCU's second phase of movies. This is not surprising, as the legendary "hookie" attempts at most comic book movies pre-MCU clearly show that what works on the pages of a comic book wont necessarily work on the big screen. Therefore its not surprising that what could be called the epitome of the often coined term "Creative Differences" is what led to Edgar Wrights departure from Ant-Man; a project he fought hard to be made.
Iron Man's Hulkbuster armor kind of puts Batman's Battle armor to shame!
When these "Creative Differences" headlines hit in regards to Ant-Man, Thor: The Dark World and Avengers: Age of Ultron president of Marvel Studios Kevin Feige had to walk the fine line between supporting his team of directors and writers while appeasing the committee responsible for the creative problems manifesting slowly within the MCU. Thankfully, as recent reports have confirmed, Feige has used the lacklustre box office performances and critical opinion of the aforementioned troubled movies to break away from Perlmutters committee, leaving him and his team of writers and directors only answerable to Disney, and the fans.
Taking into accounts Disney's current dedication to returning the Star Wars saga back to its roots as seen with Star Wars: The Force Awakens, this move by Feige (and Marvel Studios semi-reacquisition of Spider-Man) holds great promise for Phase 3, and beyond of the MCU, with Feige and his team able to creatively steer the record breaking MCU forward as evidenced with the upcoming Captain America: Civil War, which looks set to be possibly the biggest and most successful Marvel Studios production yet. Feige's dedication to the MCU and those responsible for bringing it to the big screen makes one wonder why other studios have not emulated this model for their already established franchises, such as 20th Century Fox with their Alien and Predator franchises.
