The upcoming release of 'Iron Man 3' not only kicks off the 2013 summer movie season, it kicks off Marvel's "Phase Two," a slate of films that will build up to the 2015 release of 'The Avengers 2.' Phase Two consists of 'Iron Man 3,' 'Thor: The Dark World,' 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier' and 'Guardians of the Galaxy,' AKA, all of those movies you're really going to want to see. Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige recently spoke about the Phase Two films, spilling some details for thirsty geeks the world over.

Speaking with SFX Magazine, Feige was asked about the "cosmic" tone of the Phase Two films, which will see the cinematic Marvel Universe getting bigger and stranger:

I wouldn’t say that in a broad sense. The Thor film and the Guardians Of The Galaxy film certainly are cosmic. Guardians and Thor will take the brunt of the cosmic side of the universe, particularly Guardians, which is 95% in space. I think Iron Man 3 shows the other side of Phase 2, which is delving deeper into the characters. Throwing them on a much more personal journey.

If you think Feige is talking about diversifying the Marvel movies...well, you'd be completely right. In fact, it sounds like their plan moving forward is for each of their films to break the mold in some way and not be a traditional superhero movie:

What’s exciting to me about Cap – sort of about Iron Man 3 too if you look at it – is it’s tonally almost like a different genre. Shane Black’s described Iron Man 3 as a Tom Clancy sort of political thriller, which I like a lot. We hired our directors on Cap because they loved our explanation that we really want to make a ’70s political thriller masquerading as a big superhero movie. Just like with the first film – we got Joe Johnston because we said, ‘We want to do a ’40s World War Two movie masquerading as a big superhero movie.’ I love that we’re doing a sequel to a film that’s a completely different genre than the first film. I think that’s fun. And the comics do it all the time.

How smart is that? Marvel Studios and Disney are in this for the long run and are already in the planning stages for a Phase Three. If the Marvel movies started to feel like the same thing every time (which was starting to look like a problem in Phase One), audiences could turn away and one of the biggest cash cows in Hollywood would have been sacrificed. By having each of their superhero movies fill a specific genre niche, Feige and everyone else at Marvel are thinking about the long term here.

Marvel's Phase Two begins with 'Iron Man 3' on May 3rd and continues with 'Thor: The Dark World' on November 8th 2013, 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier' on April 14th, 2014 and 'Guardians of the Galaxy' on August 1st, 2014. It'll all come to a head with 'The Avengers 2' on May 1st, 2015.

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