The Marvel Cinematic Universe He has a crisis at the door. It is not related to the role of one or another actor; with the narrative structure that has been shaping for years, through its different phases; It’s also not tied to a box office flop. Those aspects are still in good shape, generally speaking. The conflict is related to the post-production of its contents. Several filmmakers VFX have exposed criticism of Marvel Studios and their delivery times.
Part of the post-production process of films and series consists of recording and sending this content, “raw”, so that it can be later worked on in other studios. In those places the color is adjusted and different scenes work in terms of visual effects. It is one of the last links in a wide production chain and one that requires those who are part of that process. Among those involved, some VFX filmmakers have complained anonymously on the platform of Reddit.
The comments were recorded by the portal The Gamer, which echoes several of the opinions of alleged employees of specialized VFX companies that have worked or work directly with Marvel Studios. The discomfort is not minor, if one takes into account that some of them already refuse to work on this type of project.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe and the conflict with VFX artists
The problem was discovered through an open discussion on Reddit, in a thread titled “I am quite frankly sick and tired of working on Marvel shows!” (“I’m downright sick and tired of working on Marvel shows!”). The debate was opened two weeks ago and already adds more than a hundred comments related to the productions of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This first comment, posted by the user r/vfxcan be considered as an open letter, which we translate below:
“Marvel has probably the worst VFX production and management methodology out there. They can never fix the visuals before they’ve covered more than half of the show’s scheduled premiere time. The artists who work on Marvel shows are definitely not paid the equivalent of the amount of work they do.. The allure of working on a Marvel movie is overrated now and I’d rather be happy working on a TV series after decades and decades of this. I’m sorry, but I had to get it off my chest.”
Other comments in response to the above go along the same lines. One of them is published by the user Mickeym00m00also translated into Spanish:
“Yes (in relation to the comment quoted above). I request not to work in their movies and TV shows. Unfortunately, they are becoming our biggest customer. They expect a smorgasbord of options so they can change their minds 3 more times.”
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Another user, registered under the name Thirty_Nine_Thieves, said:
“Marvel VFX know they can exploit filmmakers for ‘just one more version’ and (probably) inexperienced production people trying to please the Big Major Client. It’s always a recipe for disaster… I haven’t worked on a project from Marvel since 2012 (and I continually ask not to) and never regretted it.”
One of the comments posted is related to one of the Thor movies. The translation of the text published by samvfx2015:
“At THOR they asked for a full mini sequence 2 or 3 weeks before the deadline. By that I mean from scratch, model, texture, animate, light and fix that shit in the build.”
It is not the only comment on this line; some even dare to refer to how other directors handle it. Although the Reddit platform allows anonymous comments, users who claim to have decades of experience in the area are included in the debate.
In this context, Dhruv Govilwho was part of the visual effects team for Guardians of the Galaxy Y Spider-Man: Homecomingshared the work of The Gamer on Twitter and added their comments. One of them, as part of a thread, says (with our translation):
“Working on Marvel shows is what pushed me to leave the VFX industry. They are a horrible customer. I’ve seen too many colleagues collapse after overwork, as Marvel tightens the purse strings.”.
Another key aspect in this sense is that it is not a new issue, but rather a problem that has been installed for years, with the increase in technological resources at the same time that production increased.
Taika Waititi’s joke about the special effects of Thor: Love and Thunder
During one of the promotional content of Thor: Love and Thunderwithin the media tour carried out by part of the production team, the director Taika Waititi He referred to some images in which he appears Korg. Waititi is together with teesa thompson, who plays Valkyrie. Both begin to detail the appearance of Korg (voiced by Waititi) and question that he does not seem real.
What happened? The joke is understood as a lack of tact in relation to the work team because the images they used in the clip for the content probably belong to a time when they were not yet ready or were in the post-production process. So, questioning the work of the artists involved in another stage of production does not seem the healthiest thing in an environment in which there has already been a pulse raised for years.