These days the biggest controversy surrounding superhero movies is the studio interference that many filmmakers had had to deal with while making the films. But director Chloe Zhao has praised Marvel studios in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter for allowing her to make exactly the kind of movie she wanted to with Eternals.
“I shot exactly the way I wanted to shoot. On location. A lot of magic hour. Three-hundred-sixty degrees on the same camera as I did on Nomadland. Same rigs. It’s a bit surreal. I’m still waiting for the shoe to drop. It hasn’t. I think I got lucky in that Marvel wants to take risks and do something different.”
While a newcomer in the world of big-budget comic book movies, Chlo&é Zhao has made a number of critically-acclaimed movies on a smaller level, and it seems Marvel was sufficiently impressed by her work to trust her with Eternals without feeling the need to ghost-direct from a distance.
The issue of studio interference has perhaps been the biggest distinguishing feature between the two biggest rivals in the genre of comic book movies, the DCEU(owned by WarnerMedia), and the MCU.
Over at Warner, Zack Snyder’s Justice League and David Ayer’s Suicide Squad were said to have been ruined due to too much studio interference, to the extent that fans had to launch the #RelesetheSnydercut movement to get Snyder’s original vision for his film released.
Now, fans have gone back even further, and are demanding a ‘Schumacher cut‘ of Batman Forever that is said to be a much better version of the film that was released in theaters.
On the Marvel end, Josh Trank claims his take on The Fantastic Four in the 2015 film was also butchered due to excessive studio meddling, and that his vision for the film was a lot better than the critical and financial dud that was released.
The MCU, however, has been remarkably clean of such cases of interference, a fact that is made all the more impressive considering it is by far the most successful franchise in that genre.
One reason for Marvel’s positive reputation could be that showrunner Kevin Feige is careful to hire directors whose vision falls in line with his own in terms of where the franchise is supposed to go next, rather than doing anything too dramatically different.
That is said to be the reason why filmmaker Scott Derrickson left the upcoming Doctor Strange sequel midway through production, with some saying Derrickson wanted to take a straight-up horror route with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which Feige would not allow.
For now, Zhao seems content with her time spent in the MCU. Directed by Zhao with a screenplay by Matthew and Ryan Firpo, Eternals features a cast of Richard Madden as Ikaris, Kumail Nanjiani as Kingo, Lauren Ridloff as Makkari, Brian Tyree Henry as Phastos, Salma Hayek as Ajak, Lia McHugh as Sprite, Don Lee as Gilgamesh, Angelina Jolie as Thena, Barry Keoghan as Druig, Gemma Chan as Sersi and Kit Harington as Dane Whitman, aka the Black Knight. The film will premiere in theaters on Feb. 12, 2021. This news comes from The Hollywood Reporter. The topper art is from @ultraraw26.