Prestige directors views on the MCU and comic book movies

[Totoro Man]

I think the issue is we have seen studios hire directors of various levels to direct and 9 times out of 10 very FEW question it.

Or attack it as we have seen at times.

Nobody had questions for Jonathan Franks when he was hired to direct Star Trek First Contact (who remains 1 of 2 WB films to not do reshoots or cut stuff after preview audiences saw it. The other was Forrest Gump).

Jordan Peele was not questioned when he did Get Out nor Ryan Coolger.

If The Marvels was directed by Seth Rogen-would we hear a peep questioning him??? Nia has directed more than him and both have had one hit movie with Seth making more.

The bottom line is when it's women especially of color (mainly black) everyone gets in their feelings and question the hiring.

The Marvels were looking at 4 different directors before Nia DaCosta.

I'm going to assume that you were writing about Jonathon Frakes. He started working on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" in 1987. He studied with the crew behind the scenes and eventually directed multiple episodes of the show. Nobody questioned him as the director of the film because he was one of the most prominent stars of the television show that the film was based on!

Comparing Frakes directing "First Contact" to Nia DaCosta directing "the Marvels" doesn't make even a tiny bit of sense.

I don't have a problem with DaCosta being picked as director, nor do I hold it against her. then again, I have already compared MCU directors to mere bus drivers for a rock band... and overtly stated that directors for MCU films are of less importance than they would be for any other studio type of film.

veteran Director Albert Hughes explained why he chose not to get involved... because he realized that he wouldn't enjoy working under that sort of system. would he probably have made a good "Blade" movie? yes. (if those rumors were true) if anything, her lack of experience might be an INCENTIVE for the studio to hire her... so as to minimize the possibility of "creative differences".

to address your hypothetical: if Seth Rogen were directing "the Marvels" I would absolutely question it - since I think he's a bad fit for the material. I suspect, because of his name recognition, that he would attract even more complaints, questions, and outright rejection than DaCosta. "OMG, you mean the guy that screwed up the Green Hornet? no way!"

I'm pretty confident that this "everyone" of whom you are writing is merely rhetorical argument. we don't need to create a strawman "EVERYONE" to condemn the thoughts and feelings of others over a film. and the insinuation that any complaints about this film and DaCosta's work on it MUST necessarily be inspired by racism and misogyny. it seems to be built into this franchise culture for some reason. I explained, at considerable length elsewhere, my problems with "Captain Marvel" and won't bother repeating it here. (hint: Sabiha Goecken, Lydia Litvyak, Yevdokiya Bershanskaya, among others)

the bottom line, for me, is that we all get to have opinions and it's okay if we disagree with each other. we're just talking about pop culture artifacts, after all.

[Mister Mets]

That all sounds good if you assume only certain people can be creative or create “art”. Kevin Feige went to film school just like many of the directors he has worked with. Is he any less creative because he’s the boss?

James Gunn is now co-head of DC’s movie division. Has he lost his creative bonafides now that he has a corporate gig?

1. Someone with the corporate/ creative distinction may think Gunn's films will realize his vision.
2. This is going to get an argument about the projects by other directors. DC did do something very different from Marvel by making a writer/ director one of the two people in charge. That allows the movies to be seen as part of one creative vision. Perhaps Gunn will work as a close collaborator with the other directors, kinda like how directors produce other movies.

[Agent Z]

Genuine sexual attraction is a core part of the human experience. In Spiderman 1, the scene where Mary Jane kisses Spiderman while upside down is iconic for a reason. Wonder Woman and GotG 1 also had that element to them as well. Does every movie need this? Maybe not, but I think the actions of Marvel Studios speak for themselves. When they wanted to make a serious movie, with serious themes, they added a sex scene. The characters were, from what I remember, actually naked too, unlike the above films I mentioned, but its awkwardly done, so it comes off bad (probably because of the age rating of the film itself).

So is spending five to eight hours per day at school or work, yet I don't hear people complain when a movie or tv show doesn't dedicate enough time to that unless it's advertised as part of its premise. No one would call any of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies serious (not in the way Eternals or even the Raimi Spider-Man movies are anyway). The Winter Soldier, Infinity War and Endgame were all serious movies and none of them have sex scenes.

[Ramsay Snow]

So is spending five to eight hours per day at school or work, yet I don't hear people complain when a movie or tv show doesn't dedicate enough time to that unless it's advertised as part of its premise. No one would call any of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies serious (not in the way Eternals or even the Raimi Spider-Man movies are anyway). The Winter Soldier, Infinity War and Endgame were all serious movies and none of them have sex scenes.

Hey, the sex scenes in Citizen Kane and Argo were pretty wild, if you ask me.....Saying sex scenes are necessary to portray a film as serious is a slight bit Freudian, but who am I to judge one's perceptions of art?

[StickMin]

if I recall correctly, Scorsese actually liked Sam Raimi's Spiderman films and didn't have a problem with Nolan's Batman films either. I think he specifically complained about the assembly line aspects of the current MCU. the underlying complaint is that these movies feel like a mass-produced consumer good with little or no uniqueness or personality.

the fact that Marvel keeps hiring inexperienced directors with limited experience sort of proves the aforementioned argument... that the directors are not actually that important to the process. the MCU "assembly line" is more important as to how the final product turns out than the director.

I feel like the larger problem with the MCU has been that the writing just hasn't been as good. it's almost like they think the brand name recognition is so strong at this point that they no longer have to try. to pick a recent example:

I enjoyed "Doctor Strange: The Multiverse of Madness" because the director and the cast were really trying their best... but the script falls apart when you think about it very much. nearly all of my complaints about Marvel lately has been that their scripts all feel very much by the numbers. MCU films have this nasty habit of ignoring character development and hitting the reset button for each film. (how many times does Thor need to go on a journey and find himself?)

if they bring back Raimi as director for Doctor Strange 3 I'd probably watch it.

I love how you make these claims but can't actually back any of them up with any sort of citation, sources or sound arguments.

Like Scorsese was talking about all franchise blockbuster movies, so it's hilarious that you try to act like there are exceptions here and it's only specifically the MCU they're talking about.

It's so disingenuous it's hilarious

[Totoro Man]

I love how you make these claims but can't actually back any of them up with any sort of citation, sources or sound arguments.

Like Scorsese was talking about all franchise blockbuster movies, so it's hilarious that you try to act like there are exceptions here and it's only specifically the MCU they're talking about.

It's so disingenuous it's hilarious

if you WANT sources and citations then there is no shame in asking for them. the fact that you went into attack mode and didn't even bother to ASK me to provide sources and citations is a "red flag" for me.

I believe veteran posters implicitly understood that the content in post 84 of this thread was mostly just my personal opinion. they're not even controversial opinions for this forum. which is why most people ignored it.

I didn't go out of my way to back up my statements with citations because I'm treating this thread as part of a larger ongoing conversation... and trusting that people are remembering previous content.

consider when you revisit a favorite old debate subject with a friend. do you go back and cite page numbers or ISBNs? no, because you understand that there is a set of shared experiences and knowledge base that makes this unnecessary. if I felt that it WAS necessary, I would have most certainly done it.

we've had variations of this debate at least a dozen times over the last few years. I'll provide at least a handful of the threads that I was thinking of while writing that post. if you so desire, you can go back and read through them for further reference.

https://community.cbr.com/showthread...te-for-the-MCU
https://community.cbr.com/showthread...-Is-Setting-In
https://community.cbr.com/showthread...Marvel-zombies
https://community.cbr.com/showthread...-aren-t-cinema
https://community.cbr.com/showthread...hate-MCU-films
https://community.cbr.com/showthread...se-Of-All-Time

debates about the MCU tend to be lacking in "nuance", so I felt it was important to remind people that he said this. I can back up the statement that Scorsese liked Sam Raimi's Spiderman movies. it literally only takes 10 seconds to find this link on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOovYGLp0ro

I respect the fact that you corrected me on Scorsese speaking about all blockbuster franchises. honestly, I forgot. all of my prior discussions on his statements revolved around MCU-based threads. I mistakenly remembered it as MCU focused complaint. so, congrats. you proved me wrong on that one. I'm not going to bother looking up your source for this, which you didn't provide, because I trust you on this matter.

however, to say that I'm "so disingenuous that it's hilarious" is where you go off the rails. ad hominem attacks and impugning the character of other posters is not something to be done lightly. it should not be done over mere personal differences concerning aesthetics or opinions. I actually read through your complete posting history and can say that this is something that you do fairly often.

[I encourage you to use the search function more. also consider studying a person's member profile and posting history. I like to do this because it helps me more fully contextualize and humanize another person's content. or in your case, to help me decide whether or not I would respond to you at all.]