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Businessweek recently published a cover story about Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige — “The Man Who Saved Marvel.” We’ve heard a lot of people gush about Feige the wunderkind, and given the success of Marvel’s films, it seems pretty deserved. But Feige’s old boss, Avi Arad, disagrees. Well, he takes issue with one section of the article, specifically this paragraph:

“Finally, Marvel decided to create its own studio. In 2005 it put up as collateral the film rights to characters it still controlled, such as Captain America and Nick Fury, and got $525 million in financing from Merrill Lynch. Arad, who had doubts about the strategy, resigned the following year. Feige was named studio chief in 2007. He was 33 years old, and he was in charge of Hollywood’s first major independent movie studio since DreamWorks.”

That sounds a lot like Arad left or was booted because he didn’t agree with the independent production plan. It also sounds like he didn’t have much to do with planning Marvel’s slate of films. He says that is false, and he has sent a scathing letter to the reporter. He also sent it to various media outlets, and our friends at Latino Review found it on a French website called Daily Mars, which is run by Philippe Guedj, who directed a recent documentary called Marvel Renaissance, which Arad appears in.

Here’s the letter:

“Good morning Devin. As usual you manage to disappoint me with your false statements. I am sure you were told by Marvel that I resigned over the self-financing strategy. It is about time for a reporter like you to do your homework and check the facts. It will sound arrogant to you, but I single handedly put together the Marvel slate. Read it carefully and you will notice the natural progression of the character’s design to get to where we are today. You should reach out to Merill Lynch and Ambac Insurance and to our international partners that came on board based on my track record. Our financial partners counted on my reputation. I had to work very hard to convert the doubters. They trusted me and without Iron Man this article would have not been written. Iron Man was not even in the original slate. I knew that we needed it so I set out to get it back from Newline and the rest is history. Our financing would have never happened without me reaching out to Brad Grey to make a distribution deal that will give you a corporate guarantee. Other people in Marvel worked for many months with Universal and could not reach a deal. I got tired of waiting and went to Brad. The deal was done in days, successful for both companies. The big presentation to financial institutions and insurance companies took place on the Paramount lot. I was the presenter and it worked. Does this sound to you like someone who disagreed with the strategy to make our own movies? I have forgiven Kevin for following orders and taking the credit, but he had no choice. Shame on you for kowtowing to your business gods. I have given up on journalistic integrity. You called me to talk about Kevin and I gave you the most true and glowing account on someone that I love and respect. Share your notes otherwise you just wasted my time. I will share this letter with other papers and your management to demonstrate the unprofessional self-serving work this reporter demonstrated.”

In addition to airing some of Marvel’s dirty laundry, that letter has a lot of new behind the scenes information. Do you think Universal fired whoever lost them all the Marvel Phase 1 distribution money? And there would be no Iron-Man without Arad? How would you do The Avengers without Tony Stark? The Businessweek article emphasizes Feige’s stubborn insistence on key decisions like setting the first Captain America film entirely in the ’40s and introducing Thor and Captain America in Phase 1 before they joined the Avengers. Is that the false credit the execs supposedly made him take? Marvel keeps a tight lid on things, so some or all of that is likely true, and some of the asserted facts must be on the record somewhere, but Arad leaves one key detail blank. Why did he really leave Marvel? It couldn’t have been to produce Bratz: The Movie.

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Apparently, the original post credits scene in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was going to feature Norman Osborn’s head in a jar. The character died early in the film from an illness that he spent years at Oscorp trying to cure. There might actually be plans to bring him back in future installments of the franchise, though.

It seems Oscorp is secretly keeping his head cryogenically frozen so that they can bring him back to life when technology catches up to them. There are some pretty disturbing screenshots from the scene that have leaked online.

The scene is described as showing the shadow man from the film walking up to Norman’s cryogenically frozen head in a chamber and saying, “Wake up old friend.”

Yikes! It would make sense if he did come back, though, if only to bring Chris Cooper back to reprise the role! That guy is such a great actor, and he was completely underutilized in the movie, so it would be great if they had bigger plans for him.

I’m not sure why the scene was cut. Instead all we got was that X-Men: Days of Future Past promo, which had nothing to do with Spider-Man. Either Norman Osborn’s head has nothing to do with what is to come, or they are just waiting to make the official reveal in one of the later films. Would you like to see Norman Osborn make a comeback?

Moviepilot

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Paul Giamatti‘s Rhino may not have had a lot of screen time in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, but that’s ok because he’ll be back for the sequel. At the end of the movie we got to see him terrorize New York City in his mech Rhino suit. The design of that armor was ok, but here’s a collection of alternate versions that are a little better than what ended up in the film. Some of the designs feature four-legged and two-legged suits, as well as a some alternate helmets. It looks like the final look of suit is a combination of all of the designs that you will see here. The art comes from Robert Simons, who also worked on Ender’s Game.

I’ve also included more concept art for the film created by Kelton Cram, who did some character design work for The Wolverine. They feature some different suit designs for the Rhino as well as Spider-Man, and Green Goblin. These designs are pretty cool, but the classic design that we saw for Spider-Man in the movie was perfect. The artist had this to say about his Spidey designs:

“First, make the body type look younger. Secondly, they wanted some recall to the original suit from The Amazing Spider Man comic. Lastly, they wanted to see lines in the suit, and different takes on the eyes/goggles”

When talking about the Rhino suit he says it “kept changing to alterations in the script. This is common in concept for film.” When talking about Green Goblin and his rider he explained, “It was a more complex order. The Glider had to move in certain ways, limiting what we could do with it. The Rhino suit had a bit more freedom to try new things.”

I wasn’t a big fan of Green Goblins costume design in the movie. I’m not sure If these other designs work for him either though. What did you think of the costume and character designs that ended up in the movie? Do you like any of this concept art better?