Marvel Studios’ newest film The Avengers is just about as massive as a film can get. Heroes are assembled, villains are challenged and cities are destroyed. However, when the president of Marvel Studios, alumnus Kevin Feige ‘95 visited with Leonard Maltin’s 466 class on April 26th, he said that he still thinks about being economical.

“It’s trying to see the end game despite all the craziness of production,” Feige said. “Budgets are always an issue. No matter how much you have, it’s never enough. In film school, you don’t have much, so you do what you can; even now, we’re still complaining about what can’t be done. It’s always going to be something, so you need that discipline. It’s about knowing where and how to spend the money, and every dollar spent on this movie is on the screen.”

The Avengers debuts nationwide on May 4th and is already breaking box office records overseas. The pre-sale tickets for the movie have outsold all of the other Marvel films combined. Beyond the exemplary visual and sound design of the film, Marvel Studios remained conscious in building the story and its characters.

Of The Avengers’ directing and screenwriting work as created by renowned writer/director Joss Whedon, Feige noted, “The best thing about Joss [Whedon] is, no matter how fantastic it gets, what the fans love about [his work] and why they’re popular is because of the characters. The characters never get lost amongst the spectacle. There’s a lot of spectacle in this movie, and we didn’t want the characters to get crushed under that sort of end-of-the-world spectacle.”

The screening was part of Leonard Maltin’s 466 class.

For more information, please visit: http://marvel.com/avengers_movie/