Kevin Feige to receive Pioneer of the Year award
Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) boss Kevin Feige is to receive the Pioneer of the Year Award from The Will Rogers Motion Picture Pioneers Foundation.
Kevin Feige is to receive the Pioneer of the Year Award from The Will Rogers Motion Picture Pioneers Foundation.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) boss will be celebrated at a ceremony at the Beverly Hilton hotel in California on 30 September, with him chosen for the prestigious honour for his "creativity and vision".
Kyle Davies, President of Distribution at Bleecker Street Media and Co-Chairman of the Pioneers Assistance Fund Committee, said in a statement: “Kevin Feige is a dynamic producer and executive whose creativity and vision entertains and inspires moviegoers everywhere.
"The Will Rogers Pioneers Assistance Fund is proud to celebrate Kevin’s monumental cinematic achievements and extraordinary leadership by presenting him with the 2026 Pioneer of the Year Award.”
The accolate has been given out for over 75 years to members of the motion picture industry who have displayed exceptional leadership, service to the community, and commitment to philanthropy.
Last year's recipient was Kate Hudson, while the Avengers: Doomsday producer also joins the likes of Tom Cruise, Greta Gerwig, Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, Elizabeth Banks, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, Donna Langley, Kathleen Kennedy, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Cecil B. DeMille in receiving the honour.
Kevin has been Marvel Studios president since 2008 and last year, while he acknowledged he as about "two years, a little less" left on his contract, he has no desire to stop working any time soon.
He told reporters: “Do I want to be making big movies for big audiences in 10 or 15 years from now? Yes, absolutely. That’s all I want to do.
“Marvel’s a great way to do that for me right now. But I hope to make big movies for lots of people forever more.”
He also admitted the studio had been pumping out "too much" content in recent years, with a total of around 50 hours of storytelling told between 2008 to 2019 jumping to 102 hours of movie and TV between 2019 and 2025.
He noted the period after 2019's Avengers: Endgame was a time for experimentation, evolution and expansion and while there were some great stories, such as the WandaVision and Loki TV shows, it was to the detriment of the wider franchise.
He admitted: "It’s the expansion that is certainly what devalued [that output].
“It was a big company push, and it doesn’t take too much to push us to go, ‘People have been asking for Ms. Marvel for years, and now we can do it? Do it! Oscar Isaac wants to be Moon Knight? Do it!’
“So there was a mandate that we were put in the middle of, but we also thought it’d be fun to bring these to life.”
