It started encouragingly enough, but by the time we saw Emilia Clarke with that diminutive Drax arm and Nick Fury was swanning off into space leaving the Skrulls more in the lurch than they were before, it was abundantly clear: something had gone very wrong with Secret Invasion somewhere. With the storyline hardly holding water and maintaining little consistency across its six episodes, it was obvious the Samuel L. Jackson vehicle had suffered some serious problems behind the scenes.
At last, we now know exactly what those problems were. The Hollywood Reporter has blown the lid on the struggles Marvel has been having bringing its streaming series to life, with Secret Invasion naturally involved in the conversation. As per this report, it’s become clear that the show was faced with numerous overhauls of its creative direction throughout development and pre-production, with three different head honchos in charge across the process.
First of all, Mr. Robot graduate Kyle Bradstreet seemed like a safe pair of hands to entrust Secret Invasion in, but after a year working on scripts he was fired and replaced by new showrunner Brian Tucker (Broken City), with directors Ali Selim and Thomas Bezucha (Let it Go) also involved in breaking the story. Having three cooks in the kitchen turned out to be a bad move, however, as the various creative leaders are said to have “vied for supremacy.” According to one insider, “It was weeks of people not getting along, and it erupted.”
Marvel then sent senior exec Jonathan Schwartz, a member of the studio’s creative committee The Parliament (which could not sound more like a supervillain group name, but OK), to get production back on schedule amid considerable delays that was leaving the show at risk of losing its cast due to scheduling conflicts. Bezucha, due to helm three episodes, ultimately exited, leaving Selim to direct the full series himself. Likewise, exec Chris Gary, who was tasked with overseeing the series, is reportedly due to move on when his contract expires at the end of 2023.
While Secret Invasion is an extreme example, it’s clear that creative clashes are par for the course for Marvel’s TV shows. As one insider summarized it to THR: “TV is a writer-driven medium. Marvel is a Marvel-driven medium.”