How 'Harry Potter' Inspired the Marvel Cinematic Universe, According to Kevin Feige

Much like Harry, Ron, and Hermione, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige can thank Hogwarts for teaching him a thing or two about making magic.

Entertainment Weekly reports that the Marvel boss sat down for a Q&A session at the New York Film Academy last week, and explained in the video below (at about the 33:00 mark) how J.K Rowling’s Wizarding World helped him to create so many MCU blockbusters over the years.

Feige shared:

“I always default to my experience watching Harry Potter movies. I never read the Harry Potter books. My kids aren’t old enough and aren’t into it yet, and I didn’t read them when they first came out, but I went to see every Harry Potter movie opening weekend. I saw it and I enjoyed it and then I forgot all about it and didn’t think about it again until the next Harry Potter movie came out. And those movies were so well made because I could follow it all. I could follow it, I could track it, occasionally I have to go ‘Who was that?’ but for the most part I could totally track it.”

The 46-year-old exec continued:

“Now if I had watched every movie ten times, if I had read every book, I bet there are dozens of other things in there that I would see and appreciate, but they never got in the way of me just experiencing it as a pure story. So that’s kind of what we try to navigate is if an Easter egg or a reference or something is so prevalent that it gets in the way of the story you’re telling so that people who aren’t aware of it go ‘What is this? What’s happening?’ then we usually pull back on it.”

One thing is for sure, both the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Harry Potter franchises have put fans under their spell.