As revealed in a July 2014 article in The Hollywood Reporter, much of this was an extension of the budget philosophies of Ike Perlmutter.
Still, Kevin Feige toed the company line, and in partnering with producers Louis D’Esposito and Victoria Alonso was still able to make the primary creative decisions for the future of the series.
This was highly publicized thanks to Jon Favreau’s frustrations making Iron Man 2, but also because of reports regarding the low compensation of actors who had signed on to multi-picture contracts.
Marvel could toast the fact that their movies released between 2008 and 2012 made more than $3.1 billion at the global box office — but as you would expect, it wasn’t success grown without its fair share of behind the scenes conflict.