Fans have been asking (begging?) for their favorite television personalities to appear in the Marvel movies.
While you may have heard the reason being that the Marvel TV and movies schedules don’t sync up, the real reason is because of the Marvel Creative Committee.
The Marvel Creative Committee consists of Marvel CEO billionaire Ike Perlmutter’s boy’s club of: Alan Fine, who came with Perlmutter to Marvel through Toy Biz; Marvel Comics writer Brian Michael Michael Bendis, Marvel Comics publisher Dan Buckley, and Joe Quesada, the former editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics and the current Chief Creative Officer of Marvel.
To add to that they are all good buddies with head of Marvel TV Jeph Loeb.
Long story short, last year saw Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige part ways with both Perlmutter and the Marvel Creative Committee over interference in the movies and creative differences. Captain America and Avengers: Infinity War director Joe Russo stated the following back in May:
“We’ve been on that [Marvel] journey from Winter Soldier, and it may have been some story points from Civil War that caused the civil war within Marvel. I think that there were years when Kevin was absorbing the pain inflicted on the company. [Marvel Studios is] much healthier, happier” [and is paving the way for] “really compelling choices.”
Regarding the crossover between Marvel Studios and TV not happening, head of Marvel TV Jeph Loeb recently appeared on Nerdist’s Comic Book Club podcast where he was asked about The Defenders appearing in the movies with mention there’s friction because of the Marvel Creative Committee. Via reddit:
When asked if The Defenders would be in the movies, he scoffed and went on and on about how Marvel Television is a 3 year old company and how they want to do their own thing, but specifically mentioned that they’ll see where the company is in 2019.
He then mentioned that Marvel Television projects are still all under the thumb of the Marvel Creative Committee, so that could also cause some friction between the possibility of television and movie crossovers.
Adding in my own two cents, if you have been a fan of this website or any of the Marvel COSMIC comic books, you know the Marvel Creative Committee aren’t fans of COSMIC-type stories. With the upcoming Marvel Studios movies looking like they’re heavy cosmic flicks (Doctor Strange, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Thor: Ragnarok, Captain Marvel, Avengers Infinity War, Avengers 4, Inhumans, rumored Richard Rider Nova movie), it’s no wonder Feige booted them from being involved (in addition to whatever trouble they caused).
It’s also apparent the Marvel Creative Committee and Marvel TV like to use their comic book creator-driven work as: Agents Of SHIELD is heavily influenced by the Bendis comics; Netflix is heavily influenced by Quesada’s favorites, and Jeph Loeb went so far as to cancel the 2007 Nova comic book and replace the character he now uses in his animated TV series. There’s also the fact that Bendis cancelled and took over the 2008 Guardians of the Galaxy comic book series when word of the movie getting green lit became known (and fired the writers on the Nova and GOTG comics that inspired the movie and new billion dollar Disney franchise).
It also recently became known that Kevin Feige is introducing the Marvel Cinematic Multiverse in Doctor Strange. Is Kevin Feige going to make Marvel TV a part of the multiverse and directly disconnect it from the movies, which would enable Feige to use the same characters, but with different actors?