Albert Hughes, the man behind Menace II Society, From Hell, The Book of Eli and most recently Continental, didn't mince words during an interview with the Happy Sad Confused podcast. He lashed out at Marvel Studios, proclaiming that "no real filmmaker would ever want to work with them". During the discussion, he said:
"I've been in talks with the obvious studio about superhero movies a couple of times, but I always felt uncomfortable because I knew it was a system. And they're very nice, and I went through a long process. In fact, I broke down all their movies and put them in a spreadsheet and broke down the box office, watching the title scores, where the VFX ranks, I had to do a deep dive on them."
He went on to describe how he chose not to be part of Marvel's controlled way of working.
"And I got, halfway, not very close, halfway through the process, and I go, 'No, I would implode from the kind of controlled nature of that world and not being able to do what I do.' And I don't understand why a real filmmaker would want to be in that system. I understand why up-and-comers would, which they do a good job of. finding people at the right time. But I think I would implode."
Hughes then went into more detail, saying:
"So if you're getting hired for you, and what you do and what you bring, I've been in a situation more recently where I'm getting poked and prodded, and it's like, 'Oh, you don't really want what I do.' That was checking a box for them, and this is not going to work out. And it didn't work out; I had to quit that job. I smelled it pretty early, and I said, 'No, I'm not here for this.'"
And it has become clear that Marvel has a certain way of working with rules to follow, but at the same time it seems that the directors (most of them anyway) are allowed a lot of leeway to put their own stamp on the films, which has certainly been evident with Taika Waititi's productions.
What do you think, should Marvel relax its strict rules to allow more creative freedom?