James Gunn Talks DC vs. Marvel: ‘Kevin Feige Way More Involved with Editing’ Than Warner Bros.

There's a certain style every director brings but they all need to work under quite strong guidelines by Feige. That's the job and it appears to work. I don't know what DC is doing but making good comic movies is not their strong point.

That doesn't seem to be the case at all. Feige is running Marvel the way Irving Thalberg ran MGM, or David O. Selznick ran his studio. He finds directors and actors who are at the top of their game, gives them freedom to create something unique and personal, but oversees the project to make sure they don't go off the rails.

Guardians of the Galaxy was nothing like any of the MCU films that preceded it, and other than its sequel, like nothing that came after. It's a James Gunn film from beginning to end, but with his excesses and shortcomings cleaned up by Feige and Marvel. Suicide Squad is an example of what happens when you let the inmate run the asylum: a James Gunn film from beginning to end, but a lousy one because no one was there to polish it, and help him in the areas where he needed help.

You can run down the list of MCU films and find the same thing at work every time. It's not only the reason they are all so successful-- all 27 of their films/shows to date have been reviewed favorably by critics and audiences-- but the reason they are all so different from one another.