Kevin Feige (born June 2, 1973 ) is an American film and television producer. He has been the president of Marvel Studios and the primary producer of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) franchise since 2007. The films he has produced have a combined worldwide box office gross of over US$31 billion, making him the highest grossing producer of all time, with Avengers: Endgame (2019) becoming the highest-grossing film at the time of its release. Feige is a member of the Producers Guild of America. In 2018, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture for producing Black Panther, the first superhero film to receive that honor and the first film in the MCU to win an Academy Award. In October 2019, he became the chief creative officer of Marvel Entertainment.

Early life

Feige was born in Boston, Massachusetts and raised in Westfield, New Jersey, the son of Maralyn and Tim Feige. He moved to New Jersey at the age of eight and lived there until the age of eighteen, when he graduated from Westfield High School. His maternal grandfather, Robert E. Short, was a television producer in the 1950s, working on soap operas including The Guiding Light and As the World Turns. After high school, Feige attended the University of Southern California, the alma mater of his favorite directors: George Lucas, Ron Howard and Robert Zemeckis. His first five applications to the USC School of Cinematic Arts were rejected, but he was accepted on the sixth. He graduated in 1995 with a degree in film, receiving an honorary doctorate in 2023.

Career

His early work includes being assistant to executive producer Lauren Shuler Donner on the films Volcano (1997) and You've Got Mail (1998). On the first X-Men film, released in 2000, Donner made Feige an associate producer due to his knowledge of the Marvel Universe. Impressing Avi Arad, Feige was hired to work as a producer at Marvel Studios and as Arad's second-in-command that same year. In the mid-2000s, Feige realized that although the characters Spider-Man, Blade, and the X-Men had been respectively licensed to the film companies Sony Pictures, New Line Cinema, and 20th Century Fox, Marvel still owned the film rights to the core members of the Avengers. He envisioned creating a shared universe just as creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby had done with their comic books in the early 1960s. Feige was named the president of production at Marvel Studios in March 2007, replacing the studio's president Michael Helfant. Following the successful opening weekend of Marvel's film Iron Man in May 2008, Feige was promoted to president of Marvel Studios. Feige received the Motion Picture Showman of the Year award at the International Cinematographers Guild's Publicists Guild Awards on February 22, 2013. For his work on Black Panther (2018), Feige received nominations for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Producers Guild of America Award. Feige was awarded the David O. Selznick Achievement Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures by the Producers Guild of America in 2019. In September 2019, it was reported that Feige was developing a Star Wars film for Lucasfilm, which was no longer in active development by March 2023. In October 2019, Feige, in addition to being president of Marvel Studios, was named chief creative officer for Marvel Entertainment, Marvel Comics, Marvel Television, and Marvel Animation.

Personal life

Feige married Caitlin, a cardiothoracic nurse, around 2007. They have two children: a daughter born in 2009, and a son born in 2012.

Filmography

Film

Television

Shorts

Awards and nominations