Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that can help answer the question.
Query: Who is head of Marvel Studios?
In September 2015, Perlmutter stopped overseeing the development of Marvel Studios. Disney felt the studio head, Kevin Feige, should report directly to the chairman of The Walt Disney Studios, Alan Horn, so all cinematic properties of Disney, including Pixar and Lucasfilm, were under one management structure. The restructuring was allegedly due to Feige's "frustration" of working with Perlmutter as well as some alleged controversial comments and actions by Perlmutter, such as replacing the casting of Terrence Howard as James Rhodes with Don Cheadle because black people "look the same." A person with knowledge of his creative approach said, "Ike Perlmutter neither discriminates nor cares about diversity, he just cares about what he thinks will make money." 
Jeph Loeb, who oversees Marvel Television and the television properties of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, still reports to Perlmutter.
She-Hulk was created by Stan Lee, who wrote only the first issue, and was the last character he created for Marvel Comics until his return to comics with "Ravage 2099" in 1992. The reason behind the character's creation had to do with the success of "The Incredible Hulk" (1977–82) and "The Bionic Woman" TV series. Marvel was afraid that the show's executives might suddenly introduce a female version of the Hulk, as had been done with "The Six Million Dollar Man", so Marvel decided to publish their own version of such a character to make sure that if a similar one showed up in the TV series, Marvel would own the rights.
Thor, a founding member of the superhero group the Avengers, often battles his evil adoptive brother Loki, a Marvel character adapted from the Norse god of mischief. He is among Marvel's most powerful superheroes. Many recurring characters in his stories are based on Norse Mythology. Apart from this main superhero, Marvel features a number of characters based on him.
Voss left the division in January 2016 for subscription service, Loot Crate. In March 2016, PGP was placed within Mattel Creations along with the other two Mattel content production units. After failure of the Max Steel movie in 2016, Playground Productions was absorbed into Mattel Creations.
On September 6, 2018, Mattel announced the launch of a film division, Mattel Films, that will make movies based on the company’s toy brands. Robbie Brenner was appointed to head the division as executive producer and will report directly to the CEO. The revived division's first two projects are expect to be Barbie and Masters of the Universe films. In early January 2019, Mattel closed the deal with Margot Robbie to star in the Barbie film and Warner and Robbie's production company, LuckyChap Entertainment, to co-produce the film. Mattel Films and Sony revive Master of the Universe film development in January 2019 with many of the prior attempt's director and producers while bringing on board different writers, Art Marcum and Matt Holloway.
"Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" was released by Sony Pictures Releasing under its Columbia Pictures label on December 14, 2018. In April 2015, Sony had made its first official announcement that a new animated Spider-Man film was in development, scheduling release for July 20, 2018. It would be the first animated Spider-Man feature film, and would be independent of the timelines of other Spider-Man universe films. At the end of 2015, the release date was changed to December 21, and two years later, moved up one week. Sony premiered the film at the Regency Village Theater in Los Angeles on December 1, 2018, and included tributes to Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.
On July 22, 2011, during the San Diego Comic-Con, Marvel released an image to the audience depicting a burnt sweater of the original Scarlet Spider. This led many readers to assume that Ben Reilly would be returning and taking on the mantle of Scarlet Spider once again. However, through introduction of the Marvel Now event, Marvel Point One showed readers that Kaine Parker would be the main character in the new Scarlet Spider series.
Created by writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, the character first appeared in "The Amazing Spider-Man" #1 (March 1963), making him the first member of Spider-Man's rogues' gallery, based on issue publication date, excluding the burglar who murdered Ben Parker (Supercharger was the first Spider-Man supervillain chronologically). He is also well known to be related to Kraven the Hunter. That revealed relationship helped evolve him as a major villain compared to his original depiction of being just a solo villain in the original issue of "The Amazing Spider-Man".
This MCU project was soon followed up by the successful "", released on April 27, 2018 which earned both critical praise and worldwide financial success earning in excess of $2 billion. Soon after, 20th Century Fox released "Deadpool 2" on May 18, 2018 which proved a major success in both regards itself In addition, the long awaited sequel for the Academy Award winning animated film "The Incredibles", "Incredibles 2", had its wide release on June 15, 2018 met with considerable critical praise and earned $182.68 million on its premiere weekend. The next superhero film In the Marvel Universe "Ant-Man and the Wasp" was released on July 6, with competing studios declining to release major films on American Independence Day in the face of the reliably popular film franchise.
As of 2016, Henry Gilroy is the co-executive producer of the "Star Wars Rebels" TV series.
In 1966, Marvel Comics introduced the Black Panther, an African monarch who became the first non-caricatured black superhero. The first African-American superhero, the Falcon, followed in 1969, and three years later, Luke Cage, a self-styled "hero-for-hire", became the first black superhero to star in his own series. In 1989, the Monica Rambeau incarnation of Captain Marvel was the first female black superhero from a major publisher to get her own title in a special one-shot issue. In 1971, Red Wolf became the first Native American in the superheroic tradition to headline a series. In 1973, Shang-Chi became the first prominent Asian superhero to star in an American comic book (Kato had been a secondary character of the "Green Hornet" media franchise series since its inception in the 1930s.). Kitty Pryde, a member of the X-Men, was an openly Jewish superhero in mainstream American comic books as early as 1978.
Following the announcement of the series, Russ Burlingame noted for ComicBook.com that Marvel may have been tempted to change Danny Rand from white to a person of Asian descent, especially given that the other Marvel Netflix series "Jessica Jones" and "Luke Cage" already set a precedent of increasing diversity by exploring a female and African-America lead, respectively. However, Burlingame was against this happening, wanting to see "the classic" version of the character, and feeling that making the character Asian simply because he is a martial artist was itself "quietly, subtlely racist". This situation, of casting either a white or Asian-American actor in the role, was described as "lose/lose" by Devin Faraci of Birth.Movies.Death, while Albert Ching at Comic Book Resources was strictly against casting an Asian-American. He said that any extra Asian-American representation onscreen would be positive, but that he was not comfortable with the idea of the first major Asian superhero in film or television being a martial artist. Ching questioned why this discussion had not been raised with any other character, and suggested that a non-white, non-Asian actor be cast instead to avoid either issues. He highlighted the casting of Chloe Bennet and Ming-Na Wen in the MCU series "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.", both in "non-stereotypical roles", as examples of what roles he would rather have Asian-Americans be cast in.
In March 2015, Paramount hired Academy Award winner film writer Akiva Goldsman to put together a "writers room" style brain trust in order to pitch ideas for future Transformers films with the intention of expanding the franchise into a bigger cinematic universe. At least 12 films were planned for the "Transformers Cinematic Universe" with Goldsman overseeing development of a multi-part sequel storyline along with prequels and spin off films that were to follow. In May 2015, Deadline reported that Robert Kirkman, Zak Penn, Art Marcum and Matt Holloway, Jeff Pinkner, Andrew Barrer, Gabriel Ferrari, Christina Hodson, Lindsey Beer, Ken Nolan, Geneva Robertson-Dworet, and Steven DeKnight were hired to write future instalments for the series with the spin-offs potentially titled Transformers: Beast Wars and Barrer and Ferrari were writing a film that will explore the origins of Cybertron, with the working title "Transformers One." During the New York Toy Fair on February 12, 2016, Hasbro revealed plans for a direct sequel to "The Last Knight", an untitled "Transformers 6" with a release date of June 28, 2019.
In 1967, Batman artist Infantino (who had designed popular Silver Age characters Batgirl and the Phantom Stranger) rose from art director to become DC's editorial director. With the growing popularity of upstart rival Marvel Comics threatening to topple DC from its longtime number-one position in the comics industry, he attempted to infuse the company with more focus towards marketing new and existing titles and characters with more adult sensibilities towards an emerging older age group of superhero comic book fans that grew out of Marvel's efforts to market their superhero line to college-aged adults. He also recruited major talents such as ex-Marvel artist and Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko and promising newcomers Neal Adams and Denny O'Neil and replaced some existing DC editors with artist-editors, including Joe Kubert and Dick Giordano, to give DC's output a more artistic critical eye.
Jessica Campbell Jones is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character was created by writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Michael Gaydos, and first appeared in "Alias" #1 (November 2001), as part of Marvel's Max, an imprint for more mature content. Within the context of Marvel's shared universe, Jones is a former superhero who becomes the owner and sole employee of Alias Private Investigations. Bendis originally envisioned the series centered on Jessica Drew and only decided to create Jones once he noticed that the main character had a distinct voice and background that differentiated her from Drew.
Supergirl is an American superhero action-adventure television series developed by Ali Adler, Greg Berlanti and Andrew Kreisberg (the latter two having previously created "Arrow" and "The Flash") that originally aired on CBS and premiered on October 26, 2015. It is based on the DC Comics character Supergirl, created by Otto Binder and Al Plastino, and stars Melissa Benoist in the title role. Supergirl is a costumed superheroine who is Superman's cousin and one of the last surviving Kryptonians. The series is set in the Arrowverse, sharing continuity with the other television series of the universe.
X-Men: First Class (stylized onscreen as X: First Class) is a 2011 American superhero film, based on the X-Men characters appearing in Marvel Comics. The fifth installment in the "X-Men" film series, the film was directed by Matthew Vaughn and produced by Bryan Singer. The story is set primarily in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and focuses on the relationship between Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy), and Erik Lehnsherr / Magneto (Michael Fassbender), and the origin of their groups—the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Mutants, respectively, as they deal with the Hellfire Club led by Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon), who is bent on world domination. The film co-stars Rose Byrne, January Jones, and Oliver Platt. The film also introduces new actors to the series including Nicholas Hoult and Jennifer Lawrence who, like McAvoy and Fassbender, reimagine popular characters from the franchise (Beast and Mystique) that were already established in the original trilogy.
Pixar () is an American computer animation film studio based in Emeryville, California. The studio is best known for its CGI-animated feature films created with PhotoRealistic RenderMan, its own implementation of the industry-standard RenderMan image-rendering application programming interface used to generate high-quality images. Pixar began in 1979 as the Graphics Group, part of the computer division of Lucasfilm before its spin-out as a corporation in 1986 with funding by Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs, who became its majority shareholder. Pixar and Disney had a seven feature agreement that allowed Disney to distribute the films with Disney owing the character rights. With the success of "Toy Story 2" in 1999, then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner and Pixar CEO Steve Jobs began to disagree on how Pixar should be run and the terms of their continued relationship. Eisner claimed that Toy Story 2 would not count towards the "original" film count of the agreement. Jobs announced in January 2004 that Pixar would not renew their agreement with Disney and would seek out other distributors for releases starting in 2006. In 2004, Disney Circle 7 Animation was formed as a CG animation studio to create sequels to the Disney-owned Pixar properties. In Late January 2006, new Disney CEO Bob Iger and Jobs agreed to have Disney purchase Pixar which led to Disney closing Circle 7.
In March 2017, it was announced that Joss Whedon will write, direct and produce a Batgirl film as part of the DC Extended Universe. The film would center on the Barbara Gordon version of the character, with The New 52 comics by Gail Simone serving as "a starting point" for the film. In February 2018, it was announced that Whedon would be leaving the project as writer and director, citing that "[he] didn't really have a story". In April 2018, Warner Bros. announced that screenwriter Christina Hodson had been tapped to write the screenplay for Batgirl. The studio is actively looking for a female director.
Generally speaking, exceptional-but-not-superhuman fictional characters like Batman, Iron Man, Green Arrow, and the Punisher may be classified as superheroes even though they do not have any actual superhuman abilities. Similarly, characters with superhuman abilities derived from artificial, external sources, like the Six Million Dollar Man's bionic limbs, Green Lantern's power ring, and Tony Stark's Iron Man armor, may be described as having superpowers, but are not necessarily superhuman.
Lady Shiva (real name Sandra Woosan, or more recently Sandra Wu-San) is a fictional supervillainess and antiheroine appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was co-created by Dennis O'Neil and Ric Estrada, and first appeared in "Richard Dragon, Kung Fu Fighter". Over time, she has become more closely associated with Batman and related characters, both as an enemy and an ally. She is a martial arts grandmaster and one of the most skilled combatants in the DC Universe. She is an assassin-for-hire, who specializes in killing her targets with her bare hands, and is the mother of Cassandra Cain, a.k.a. Orphan.
The Hulk is a fictional superhero appearing in publications by the American publisher Marvel Comics. Created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, the character first appeared in the debut issue of "The Incredible Hulk" (May 1962). In his comic book appearances, the character is both the Hulk, a green-skinned, hulking and muscular humanoid possessing a vast degree of physical strength, and his alter ego Dr. Robert Bruce Banner, a physically weak, socially withdrawn, and emotionally reserved physicist, the two existing as independent personalities and resenting of the other.
Marvel Studios, LLC (originally known as Marvel Films from 1993 to 1996) is an American motion picture studio based at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California and is a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios, itself a wholly owned division of The Walt Disney Company, with film producer Kevin Feige serving as president. Previously, the studio was a subsidiary of Marvel Entertainment until Disney reorganized the companies in August 2015.
In August 2015, Marvel Studios was placed into Walt Disney Studios, with Feige reporting directly to Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan Horn instead of Marvel Entertainment CEO Isaac Perlmutter. Marvel Television and subsidiary Marvel Animation were left under Marvel Entertainment and Perlmutter's control. "Fast Company" ranked Marvel Studios number eleven on its 2018 World's Most Innovative Companies list.
As of April 2017, Marvel Studios was housed on the second floor of the Frank G. Wells Building at the Disney studio lot.
Arad's second-in-command, Kevin Feige, realized that unlike Spider-Man and the X-Men, whose film rights were licensed to Sony and Fox, respectively, Marvel still owned the rights to the core members of the Avengers. Feige, a self-professed "fanboy", envisioned creating a shared universe just as creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby had done with their comic books in the early 1960s. To raise capital, the studio secured funding from a seven-year, $525 million revolving credit facility with Merrill Lynch. Marvel's plan was to release individual films for their main characters and then merge them in a crossover film. Arad, who doubted the strategy yet insisted that it was his reputation that helped secure the initial financing, resigned the following year.
In 2007, at 33 years old, Feige was named studio chief. In order to preserve its artistic integrity, Marvel Studios formed a creative committee of six people familiar with its comic book lore: Feige, Marvel Studios co-president Louis D'Esposito, Marvel Comics' president of publishing Dan Buckley, Marvel's chief creative officer Joe Quesada, writer Brian Michael Bendis, and Marvel Entertainment president Alan Fine, who oversaw the committee. Feige initially referred to the shared narrative continuity of these films as the "Marvel Cinema Universe", but later used the term "Marvel Cinematic Universe". Since the franchise expanded to other media, this phrase has been used by some to refer to the feature films only. Marvel has designated the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Earth-199999 within the continuity of the company's multiverse, a collection of fictional alternate universes.
By 2005, Marvel Entertainment began planning to independently produce its own films and distribute them through Paramount Pictures. Previously, Marvel had co-produced several superhero films with Columbia Pictures, New Line Cinema and others, including a seven-year development deal with 20th Century Fox. Marvel made relatively little profit from its licensing deals with other studios and wanted to get more money out of its films while maintaining artistic control of the projects and distribution. Avi Arad, head of Marvel's film division, was pleased with Sam Raimi's Spider-Man films at Sony, but was less pleased about others. As a result, they decided to form Marvel Studios, Hollywood's first major independent movie studio since DreamWorks.