Breakdown: What We Know About Victoria Alonso Being Fired From Marvel Studios
An earthquake hit the Hollywood news cycle last week, when The Hollywood Reporter broke that Victoria Alonso had parted ways with her longtime home, Marvel Studios.
Alonso, a Buenos Aires-born gay woman, arrived at the company in 2006 as Chief of Visual Effects and Postproduction, and has been an executive producer on all Marvel Studios projects since 2012’s Avengers. In late 2021, she was promoted to President, Physical and Postproduction, Visual Effects, and Animation Production for the company, which meant she would be overseeing the entire MCU pipeline. She was the third of the main trio at Marvel, which also included her immediate superior Louis D’Esposito and CEO Kevin Feige.
There has been a lot of speculation regarding her exit, and in particular, the reasons. Several options were floated around; for starters, that it was Disney’s doing after Alonso was outspoken against former CEO Bob Chapek’s decision to not take a stand against Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill last year. Speaking at the 33rd GLAAD Media Awards, Alonso called Chapek out by name:
“I asked him to look around and truly if what we sell is entertainment for family, that we don’t choose what family. Family is this entire room. Family is the family in Texas, in Arizona, in Florida, and in my family, in my home. So I ask you again Mr. Chapek: please respect if we’re selling family, take a stand against all of these crazy outdated laws. Take a stand for the family.”
In a statement to Variety on Friday, this was also the reasoning given by Alonso’s lawyer, Hollywood veteran litigator Patty Glaser (who argued, for instance, Conan O’Brien vs. NBC). Said Glaser:
“Victoria, a gay Latina who had the courage to criticize Disney, was silenced. Then she was terminated when she refused to do something she believed was reprehensible. Disney and Marvel made a really poor decision that will have serious consequences. There is a lot more to this story and Victoria will be telling it shortly—in one forum or another.”
That there is so much more to this story that meets the eye is clear to everyone. But why would Disney fire Alonso now, a year after she made these comments and with a different person in charge of the company? Variety was told by sources that, following her comments, Alonso was banned from any marketing push for any of her Marvel Studios projects. Meanwhile, reporter Jeff Sneider was told that her exit had nothing to do with her being outspoken against Chapek, or with her push for diversity in the MCU.
Glaser’s statement came after The Hollywood Reporter published a story saying that the reason behind her firing was a breach of contract, after Victoria Alonso packaged, produced, and promoted the Oscar-nominated film Argentina, 1985, for another studio. As established in Alonso’s latest contract renewal, the executive was to not work on any film for any competing studio. According to reports (which have been debunked by her lawyer), she did not tell Disney in advance she would be working outside of the Marvel Studios banner on the aforementioned project, which she’s said before was deeply personal to her. In an interview with IndieWire that was published last month, it’s said that “producer Axel Kuschevatzky persuaded Alonso to get permission from Disney and Marvel to help him to produce Argentina, 1985.” According to The Hollywood Reporter, this never happened, neither did Alonso give notice.
According to Matt Belloni from Puck News, she asked for permission after she’d already started work on the movie. She got a reluctant thumbs up, with specific limits which she apparently didn’t adhere to. Disney’s Alan Bergman and Marvel’s Kevin Feige were very annoyed at Victoria Alonso for, once again, prioritizing her own interests over her actual job. Alonso walked the red carpet of the Academy Awards on March 12th, not as a producer on the multiple-nominated Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, which she was a part of, but rather as part of the Argentina, 1985 team. Production on that film took place over the pandemic, during a time when Alonso was supposed to be overseeing post-production and VFX on an unprecedented number of projects from Marvel Studios; almost all of them have been heavily criticized for their lackluster and at-times laughably bad work.
Since her firing, Victoria Alonso has been pointed at as almost single-handedly responsible for creating a toxic environment with artists that involved an impossible amount of work with strict deadlines, and constant changes of opinion that made VFX vendors start from scratch on hundreds of shots they’d been working on for months. Multiple artists and members of the industry have been protesting on Reddit, through anonymous interviews with Vulture and other outlets, and on social media in general, against Marvel’s policies towards them, as well as calling for unionization. Alonso, who along with Kevin Feige, personally approves every single shot on every single project, has been called out by name since her firing for this belittling behavior (though she’s definitely not the only enabler).
(L-R): Kathryn Newton as Cassandra “Cassie” Lang and Paul Rudd as Scott Lang/Ant-Man in Marvel Studios’ ANT-MAN AND THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA. Photo by Jay Maidment. © 2022 MARVEL.
The breach of contract that was originated by Alonso working on — and most importantly promoting — Argentina, 1985 seems to be the central reason for her firing. That much The Hollywood Reporter, Variety (along with a statement by Disney), and Matt Belloni have confirmed. But there’s probably so much more to the story — from what we can read, Alonso was not very well-liked internally and externally, and this may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. Glaser disputed this in her statement to Variety, saying:
“The idea that Victoria was fired over a handful of press interviews relating to a personal passion project about human rights and democracy that was nominated for an Oscar and which she got Disney’s blessing to work on is absolutely ridiculous.”
Disney may have fired her with no payout, but according to Belloni, a deal is being negotiated behind closed doors at the moment, which definitely means we will not be hearing the end of the story, as NDAs will be signed to make sure neither the company nor the producer will be hurt by either side arguing in public.
Stay tuned for more details as they appear.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as authors like Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
