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Marvel’s Biggest Problem

  • Lyss Ku
  • Jul 14, 2023
  • 9 min read

I am sure many of you know that I love Marvel, whether it is the films or Disney+ shows. Ever since knowing that every MCU project is canon to a big storyline, I strive to watch every one of them. However, there have been some projects that are considered “flops” along the way, and many of the fans can agree to that point. In fact, this issue has come up several times with Marvel’s recent projects in phase’s 4 and 5. I have been aware of this for a while, but I haven’t brought it up in my blog until now. When putting together a movie or TV show, there are a lot of parts that come into place. A lot of people usually root for the actors and directors that bring the show/movie to life. However, there is another group who work behind the scenes that gets largely ignored when the credits roll. That is mainly the crew which comprises of production, costume, sound, etc. For a company like Marvel Studios that creates of a lot of action scenes in their projects, a large portion of the production is dedicated to the visual effects team, or VFX. You would think that it would be cool to work as a VFX artist for Marvel when seeing their big stunt scenes with the heroes using their powers, right?! Well, according to many of the people working in that area, it is a different kind of story that they are very unhappy about. I haven’t even reviewed MCU phases 4-5, but I can already tell from the lackluster quality in some of their recent projects that these VFX artists are very overwhelmed.


So how does Marvel do their VFX? Well, it turns out they don’t have an in-house VFX team, so they hire many companies to work on their projects. Some of them include, Weta Digital, Framestore, Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), and hundreds of freelance workers. Usually more than 5 companies work on at least one project adding visual effects to a lot of scenes. If there are hundreds of people working on VFX for an MCU project, then why do they not like working for Marvel? Recently, there were allegations made on a subreddit post where many VFX artists spoke out about working for the big company. One user said that Marvel has the worst VFX management where they “can never fix the show before more than half the allocated time for the show is over.” They also said that the VFX artists are not paid according to the amount of work they put in. Another user said they have seen people punching walls and throwing monitors from stress. In fact, Marvel Studios has a reputation of overworking their VFX artists even before the subreddit post surfaced. One source described working “60-80 hours” which lasted “multiple months in a row.” That led people to crying on their desks and having anxiety attacks due to the overwhelming pressure. Yep, working long, unpaid hours resulting in having mental breakdowns and burnout are telltale signs of a toxic work environment. I know there are many people who are big Marvel fans that take time to see their biggest movies and Disney+ shows, but it isn’t so great when the employees working at the studio aren’t happy due to the work environment. I totally understand this because I have been in a similar situation, and I DO NOT want to experience that again.


Another reason why the VFX artists are stressed out is because Marvel Studios is “infamous” for requesting different versions until one is approved. There are even more changes that come into production later, even weeks until the release resulting in a lot of overtime work. One source said that they had “make up entire third acts of a film, a month before release because the director did not know what they wanted.” Marvel is known for making lot of changes to their projects for hundreds of reasons. For example, there was a pandemic-related plot line in The Falcon and the Winter Solider that had to be removed due to obvious reasons. There was also the time when Black Panther: Wakanda Forever had to change its entire story due to the passing of Chadwick Boseman. It was even revealed that the ending of Ant-man and the Wasp: Quantumania was shot a month before release. In a video from the Deep Dive, YouTuber Erik Voss uncovered that Kevin Feige said that "you need to make sure that the experience itself works regardless or what has been spoiled or not" when uncovering reasons why Marvel changes their plot lines. For those of you that didn’t know, special effects takes a lot of work and it isn’t something like cutting and pasting an image. I have never worked on a film, professionally, but I have had experience doing projects on the imovie app. I can tell you it does take a lot of time and patience to create a movie, but imagine if I added visual effects to it. I would especially be panicking and having a breakdown trying to finish my imovie project close to the deadline. What would make it worse if I had a technical issue that popped up at the last minute making me more stressed. Tying this back to the Marvel VFX issue, one effects artist said that “Marvel’s directors are often inexperienced with the VFX process, both on set and after.” If the director happens to prefer longer takes, that increases the workload on artists, and the longer that effect is on screen, the more precise they have to be.


As I mentioned earlier, the quality of many of Marvel’s recent projects have been lackluster. It is also no surprise that there have been a lot of films and TV shows produced in the last couple of years. Compared to 2019, there were 5 Disney+ shows and 4 films in 2021, and 3 shows, 3 films, and 2 special presentations last year. Having that many MCU projects done is also a result of the pandemic delaying and pushing everything back which explains why we didn’t get anything from in 2020. However, that also gives the VFX artists a lot of work to handle. I can see why this can be overwhelmingly stressful for a lot of people since the VFX companies usually work on more than one MCU project. Recently, there was an article on Vulture where some of the VFX artists (that stayed anonymous) spoke out on working on Ant-man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Now, that film got a lot of mixed reviews, and a low score on Rotten Tomatoes. Some of those reviews were criticizing the bad CGI used, and it turns out that once again it was a result of the artists working under pressure. It was also revealed that much of the resources were diverted to Black Panther: Wakanda Forever which happened to be in post-production at the same time.

4 years are stated on the bottom with bars above 2019, 2021, and 2022 with different Marvel titles on them along with cumulative number of hours on the top
A breakdown of MCU projects from the last four years. Via "Deep Dive"

One artist said for Ant-Man, there were many changes happening towards the third and fourth part of the project that were too late. Things had to be done to cover up incomplete work, and it was noticeable unfortunately. Having Wakanda Forever as a top priority really did negatively impact the final product of Quantumania. Another artist said that because Wakanda Forever was a top priority for post-production, there was a smaller team working on Ant-man. There were even times when they had to create an actor’s entire action asking “why didn’t they film it the right way or how they wanted to in the first place? Why are we having to re-do and re-create? Why do we have to Frankenstein together an actor’s performance?” They also had to end up taking over a redoing a lot of other artists’ work which isn’t how it is supposed to go? To be honest, I loved Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, but I also wanted Ant-man and the Wasp: Quantumania to also do well since it started phase 5 of the MCU. I know it doesn’t deserve that low of a RT score, but I could tell that most of the film wasn’t that great. It can’t be helped that these VFX artists were working on two major Marvel projects resulting one of them having to cut a lot of corners. If only these projects were spread farther apart, we would have gotten something better. However as one artist said, he “equates it to human greed.” These major companies are trying to earn as much money from the box office after coming back from the pandemic, and retaining subscribers in streaming services.


With all this backlash involving the toxic work environment of Marvel’s VFX artists, is there someone working at the executive level that is to blame for all of this? Well, there have been sources pointing toward former Marvel executive, Victoria Alonso. For those of you don’t know, Victoria Alonso was currently the president of physical and postproduction, visual effects and animation. She joined Marvel Studios in 2006 as chief of visual effects and postproduction, and has been there since the beginning of the MCU. Back in March, she left Marvel Studios all of a sudden. Sources said she was fired due to working on an Oscar-nominated film outside of the company which breached her contract. However, there was also another report saying she was responsible for the toxic work environment for VFX. It said that everyone was scared of Alonso, not wanting to be on her bad side or they get fired. They also spoke of her keeping a blacklist of VFX artists she doesn’t want to hire again for future Marvel projects. Another source did report that Alonso is being used as a scapegoat for all these accusations continuing on this VFX controversy. Therefore, we won’t actually know if she was behind all of this until more reports arise, or Victoria Alonso herself reveals the truth. Until then, the other Marvel executives should step up and hold accountability for the poor working conditions of the VFX department. They should be making improvements of how they handle VFX in their projects. Otherwise, they will be losing a lot of artists (most of them have refused to work on another Marvel project and are looking for work somewhere else), and the quality is just going to get much worse due to understaffing.

an image of Victoria Alonso from a Marvel premiere
Former Marvel president of physical and post-production, visual, effects and animation Victoria Alonso

Despite all the recent backlash on how Marvel is treating their VFX artists, there is some hope for the future. In an interview with EW, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige mentioned that they will be focusing more on quality than quantity. That meant that there could be fewer movies and shows released every year. We have been seeing that with the next MCU movie, The Marvels, being pushed from July to November of this year. For the Disney+ shows, we were supposed to get at least 5 of them, but it looks like only three will be released this year with Secret Invasion currently streaming, Loki season 2 coming in October, and Echo for some reason releasing all their episodes near the end of the year. There is also the ongoing writers’ strike and the most recent SAG-AFTRA actors’ strike that has shut down productions causing a lot of Marvel’s upcoming phase 5-6 projects to be delayed. Not sure how that will help with the VFX issue since nothing can be done in production currently, but hopefully these delays give them more time to improve on parts of projects not affected by the strikes. Even Disney CEO, Bob Iger said that not every Marvel hero needs a third of fourth movie as part of Disney’s restructuring plan in all of their properties.


For anyone at Marvel Studios who comes across this, I hope you keep your word and start to care more about your VFX artists. You have a lot of people who love your projects, but I can’t help it if the employees are not treated fairly in toxic work environments. These employees should be happy working for you as much as the fans love Marvel. Just as long as you don’t give them an overwhelming amount of work with multiple projects every year, and pay them based on the number of hours spent working. That is how they will give you high quality work if they have a reasonable deadline to get things done in postproduction. Speaking of multiple projects, it is okay if you need to delay your shows and films. It is starting to become part of the new normal post-pandemic. I am fine not seeing a lot of projects in a year because it can be overwhelming for audiences too. Just take the time you need to have the visuals looking fantastic before release. I have enjoyed your past MCU projects over the years, and I especially remember seeing Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame as a great conclusion to the Infinity Saga. I want to feel that same excitement when seeing the upcoming Avengers movies, along with other projects. You guys have made great successes before, and I know you can do that again. As for the VFX artists out there, I understand what you have been through and I proud for those that used their voices to speak out. I encourage more of you guys to speak out and to keep doing that until you are given a good working environment. If you are tired of being in a toxic work environment, get out of there and find somewhere that values you. To the Marvel executives, I hope you take accountability regarding the VFX issues. I strongly recommend getting your own in-house VFX team so they have a clear idea of what to expect for each project. I hope whoever replaces Victoria Alonso will do a better job at managing the VFX team and makes sure that each project is of high quality. If things don’t change, you will keep getting mediocre projects due to many of the artists unwilling to work with the company. There also might be more Marvel executives stepping down as well. This should apply not just to your VFX people, but to the thousands of writers, actors, and other people that are working behind the scenes. The next time you are sitting through the credits waiting for the post-credit scenes, read through all the list of people who worked on visual effects as an act of appreciation.


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