One of the Directors Approached for the BLACK WIDOW Movie Bashes Marvel Studios

The directing gig for Marvel’s Black Widow movie ultimately went to Cate Shortland (Berlin Syndrome), but Marvel Studios met with several directors in the process looking for the best possible choice to take on this highly anticipated project.

One of the other directors who met with Marvel about directing the film was Lucrecia Martel, who has made a bunch of foreign films that I’m not familiar with. Her experience with meeting with Marvel wasn’t a good one for her. In fact, in a recent interview with The Pioneer, she slammed Marvel and their approach to filmmaking.

In this first comment, she talks about how she doesn’t like how Marvel didn’t want her to have to worry about directing the action sequences:

"Marvel and other such production houses are trying to involve more female filmmakers. They also told me, 'Don't worry about the action scenes, we will take care of that.' I was thinking, 'Well I would love to meet Scarlett Johansson but also I would love to make the action sequences.' Companies are interested in female filmmakers but they still think action scenes are for male directors.”

From what I understand, even with the male directors of their films, there is a whole separate team of people that handle the action sequences in these movies. Just like there’s a whole separate team of people that handle the special effects, and you can bet that those teams consists of a mix of men and women. In the end, since making a film is a collaborative effort, all of the creative talent is involved with how these scenes are planned out and shot.

She then went on to say she didn’t like how the special effects and the soundtrack were handled in their films:

"The first thing I asked them was maybe if they could change the special effects because there's so many laser lights... I find them horrible. Also the soundtrack of Marvel films is quite horrendous. Maybe we disagree on this but it's really hard to watch a Marvel film. It's painful to the ears to watch Marvel films."

Obviously, Martel has a different way of doing things and has a very different vision than what Marvel is trying to do, which is great! It’s no secret that Marvel Studios has an well-oiled assembly line process of making moves that isn’t going to work with every filmmaker. It’s one of the reasons why Edger Wright ended up not directing Ant-Man.

Marvel Studios just has a process, and they look for filmmakers who fit in best with how that process works. It seems like Martel was looking to shake up that process, which is probably why things didn’t work out.

Martel does go on to say, though, that she would still be open to helming Black Widow, but I think that ship has sailed.

What do you think about the statements she made about how Marvel handles things?