What a difference one bad movie can make for a studio. Once bulletproof, there are now big cracks in the veneer of immutable success in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), thanks to the underwhelming performance of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Even worse, the firing of former Disney exec Victoria Alonso is being blamed on Pride flags appearing in the movie. A new article, however, says that’s not the case.
About a month after the release of the movie, Alonso, a gay Latina, was fired by Disney, per a deep dive on the MCU in The New Yorker. Before that, reports came out that Disney was overworking VFX artists and throwing all of its resources at Black Panther 2, which in turn meant that Quantumania would suffer.
The New Yorker spoke to some VFX artists, with one revealing that “[Disney has] a tendency to change their minds pretty late, and in effects that’s where we take all the heat.” There are also some issues with motion-capture suits. The actors in Endgame wore mocap suits during a time traveling scene, which meant VFX artists had to work the costumes in.
“They could have just worn the costumes, and it would have been a billion times easier,” the VFX artist said. Regardless, Alonso seemed to be getting scapegoated for the issue. Rumors swirled that Alonso criticized how Disney handled the Florida “Don’t Say Gay” bill and then she refused to edit out pride flags from a street scene in Quantumania.
A former executive said the accusations were “not credible. We’ve been doing whatever was asked of us by China, Russia, and the Middle East for twenty years.” Alonso’s lawyers threatened Disney over the narrative and Alonso won a settlement worth millions.
Alonso started at Marvel in 2006 as the chief of visual effects and post production. She was instrumental in the studio-making hit Iron Man in 2008 and a slew of movies that followed. Now word yet on where she’ll land next, but we’ll keep you posted.