The Marvels didn’t need to hand more fuel to those out for blood for the Brie Larson sequel, but we got some anyway when it was revealed that director Nia DaCosta had exited the movie before it had finished post-production in order to start work on her next film. Needless to say, that wasn’t exactly a great look.
DaCosta herself has now addressed the situation, though, and offered her truth on what happened. In an interview with Jake’s Takes, the filmmaker was asked for her response to all the negativity surrounding this revelation, to which the Candyman reboot helmer made clear that it was simply a schedule conflict, caused by Marvel’s habit of pushing the movie back again and again.
“It’s interesting. I think there’s just a lot of energy and criticism around Marvel anyway, so I’m not surprised. But for me personally, it was literally that they just moved the date of the film four different times, and so instead of it being a two-year process, which I was deeply committed to, it became a three-and-a-half-year process,” DaCosta explained.
DaCosta also stressed that this conflict of priorities was signposted to Marvel far in advance:
“So every time the date moved, and they knew the entire time that I had an obligation, a greenlit move with people who were waiting for me, and I pushed that, and I pushed it again. And then I pushed it again. And then eventually we all knew, like ‘OK, if this pushes again, I’m not gonna be able to be in L.A. to do the rest of this in person.'”
Lastly, the director hit back at any idea that she had left the film in the lurch, as she went on to say that The Marvels was almost fully realized at the time and her team knew exactly what she wanted from it, so her exit wasn’t as “dramatic” as folks might think.
“So we just figured out a way to do it remote, we figured out the best process and actually at the time that I left to go to London to start prep on my next film, everyone was so clear about what [The Marvels] was, what we wanted, everyone knew what I wanted, so it really wasn’t the dramatic sort of thing that I think people are feeling,” DaCosta concluded.
As the interview pointed out, directors starting work on their next film while their prior one is still in post is nothing new, with Steven Spielberg already getting cracking on Schindler’s List as the finishing touches were being put on Jurassic Park back in 1993. Nevertheless, like DaCosta says, anything to do with the Marvel universe receives a higher level of scrutiny, so when it comes to the MCU every issue is inflated to the nth degree.
Then again, even DaCosta herself has admitted every Marvel movie is Kevin Feige’s movie more than it is the individual director’s, so this will no doubt be used as another beating stick for the “Marvel isn’t cinema” crowd.
