Over 12 years, studio chief Kevin Feige shepherded the 23 feature films in the MCU to historic, industry-transforming success, as each movie knit together a larger tapestry of storytelling that culminated in 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame” and “Spider-Man: Far From Home.” The next phase of the MCU — feature films “Black Widow” and “Eternals” and Disney Plus series “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” and “WandaVision” — were all supposed to debut in 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, pushed all those titles into 2021, and forced the studio to shuffle its schedule and place “WandaVision” in the pole position for the future of the MCU.

That decision was at least in part logistical: “WandaVision,” starring Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff (a.k.a. Scarlet Witch) and Paul Bettany as Vision, places its characters inside versions of classic American sitcoms like “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” “Bewitched,” and “The Brady Bunch,” allowing for a more TV-friendly production footprint that helped the show to finish first. But it’s also symbolic. “WandaVision” — from showrunner Jac Schaeffer and director Matt Shakman — is radically different from anything Feige and Marvel Studios have done before, and makes abundantly clear that the MCU’s foray into TV is not going to be business as usual.

Feige himself is busier than ever, with at least 17 feature film and TV titles scheduled over the next two years — not to mention his side gig producing a “Star Wars” movie alongside “Star Wars” feature projects from fellow superhero storytellers Patty Jenkins (“Wonder Woman 1984”) and Taika Waititi (“Thor: Love and Thunder”). Feige isn’t exactly eager to talk about venturing into a galaxy far, far away. But in his conversation with Variety over Zoom, the 47-year-old super-producer was candid about just how much of himself he’s poured into “WandaVision,” and how the pandemic is already reshaping his plan for the MCU.

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