When Marvel takes too much control over a project you can end up with something along the lines of Thor: The Dark World, but when it cedes arguably too much power to a filmmaker you get Thor: Love and Thunder, so there’s definitely a balance to be struck between art and commerce.
However, recent comments by The Marvels director Nia DaCosta have given rise to a thousand conspiracy theories from the darker corners of the internet happy to take it as confirmation it was wrestled from her grip in an effort to avert disaster, many of whom find themselves more convinced than ever that a bomb is lurking in the shadows based entirely on its widely-reported status as the cinematic universe’s cheapest and shortest movie to date.
As much as DaCosta reiterated that story always comes first and foremost, it’s not hard to interpret her stance on Kevin Feige’s involvement as being akin to somebody who knows they’re only one small part in a massive machine, as opposed to an auteur being handed the license to make exactly the kind of superhero blockbuster they envisioned in their head.
“The overarching narrative is secondary to the narrative of the individual film. It is a Kevin Feige production, it’s his movie. So I think you live in that reality, but I tried to go in with the knowledge that some of you is going to take a back seat.”
She-Hulk may have mocked the concept, but everything that happens in the MCU does indeed floww through Feige, who signs off on every major decision regardless of how big or small an impact it could stand to make in the long run.
There’s far too many people out there crossing their fingers in the hopes The Marvels will fail, though, even if history is technically on DaCosta’s side when the franchise’s finest efforts tend to delicately toe the line between standing alone and slotting seamlessly into the grand calculus of the multiverse.
