Director Nia DaCosta has shed some honest and revealing light on her experience directing The Marvels, and it turns out, the film we saw wasn’t what she initially signed up to make.
Speaking at Dublin’s second annual screenwriting festival, DaCosta got candid about her time inside the Marvel machine, saying bluntly, “Ok, this isn’t going to be the movie that I pitched or even the first version of the movie that I shot.”
DaCosta came into the project full of passion and she described herself as “a big comic book nerd growing up” and said making a Marvel film was her dream job. But that dream quickly collided with the studio’s infamous system of production, where tight deadlines and heavy oversight often override a director’s original vision.
“They had a date, and they were prepping certain things, and you just have to lean into the process hardcore,” she explained. “The way they make those films is very different to the way, ideally, I would make a film, so you just have to lean into the process and hope for the best.”
Hope, unfortunately, wasn’t enough. “The best didn’t happen this time,” she admitted. “But you kind of have to trust in the machine.”
While DaCosta never directly criticizes Marvel Studios, it’s clear that what started as a dream gig turned into a harsh reality check. She described the whole experience as a “learning curve” that ultimately made her stronger as a filmmaker, especially when it comes to navigating big studio projects.
Despite decent reviews (currently sitting at 62% on Rotten Tomatoes), the film only brought in $206.1 million globally, which is a steep drop from the $1 billion haul of Captain Marvel. By most accounts, it’s one of Marvel Studios’ biggest financial misfires, reportedly losing the studio around $237 million.
And the cracks are showing across the MCU. As the studio leans harder into reshoots and last-minute changes, like with what happened with Captain America: Brave New World.
Looking ahead, DaCosta is currently working on The Bone Temple, the sequel to 28 Years Later, and is already making it clear that this one will be hers.
“I’m really proud of these movies,” she said. “I told them that I wasn’t going to make a Danny Boyle movie because that would be impossible and also not of interest to me as a filmmaker.”
Instead, she hopes to give the film a “fresh take” and “individual language.”
Source: Deadline
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