The Marvels Director's Controversial Move Caused BTS Worry - But Was It Her Fault?

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has seen its fair share of controversies, whether it's the VFX team accusing the studio of overworking them or actor-related legal issues that threaten to disrupt long-established casting. In this case, an unnamed Marvel Studios insider who spoke with Variety has claimed that "The Marvels" director Nia DaCosta moved on from the project in the middle of post-production work — quite literally, as she left for London to begin mounting her next feature, the Tessa Thompson-starring drama "Hedda." 

"If you're directing a $250 million movie, it's kind of weird for the director to leave with a few months to go," the source said.

It's very important to note that DaCosta has not addressed the insider's comments, nor has she remarked upon the article in general as of press time. But it does leave the reader wondering how much of this alleged choice is her fault. After all, Kevin Feige is — per Variety's quoted insider — the last stop for all things MCU and allegedly thrives in sculpting its films in post-production. But he also has a heavy workload on his plate. 

On top of all these woes, the difficult post-production life of "The Marvels" had a domino effect on one of its fellow MCU films.

"The Marvels" is tasked with weaving together three different stories — that of Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), Carol Danvers (Brie Larson), and Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani). Trying to tie those threads together resulted in a lot of post-production work (including four weeks of reshoots) — to the point of "The Marvels" being delayed from its original February 2023 release slot to July 2023 and finally November 2023. That allegedly ended up causing some interesting problems for "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania," which filled the February slot.

Variety reports the "Quantumania" VFX team had to move their schedule up by four and a half months to complete the movie on time. That resulted in CGI work that drew negative comments at the film's premiere. It's hard to say from the article's standpoint whether the critical failure of "Quantumania" resulted from it being rushed to theaters, but surely the VFX crunch didn't help.

As of press time, "The Marvels" is tracking for a debut of roughly $75 to $80 million. It's now a waiting game to see if the film can pull out a box office win despite its long, difficult production process.