Marvel Studios Hit With More Drama, Sets ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Back to the Drawing Board
There is something that both Marvel Studios executives and fans have realized over the past few years that isn’t working with the company’s recent outings, and on the corporate side, with upcoming titles as well. The writing is not good enough. It took nearly three dozen rewrites to get Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness off the ground, and that probably wasn’t even the worst case of that. Following a ton of criticism in 2022 for their film and Disney Plus slate, the studio pledged to invest more money into writers as they reassessed their production pipeline. Secret Invasion went through a ton of behind-the-scenes shenanigans before it premiered on Disney Plus to some of Marvel’s worst receptions ever. Blade is its own case study and probably a project that will have to be scrapped as Mahershala Ali ages out of the role. Now, Daredevil: Born Again has started to air its dirty laundry.
The Hollywood Reporter published an extensive story this week on some of Marvel’s latest behind-the-scenes troubles, with on-the-record statements from executives that sometimes felt like a PR statement about the company being committed to improving their output and looking at the issues they’ve been facing post-Avengers: Endgame, and to a degree, even before then. The point, though, is that when things are working, who cares how that happened? Case in point, Marvel’s “fix it in post” strategy, a statement that executives like to repeat to their creative teams as they try to go through their production schedules rather swiftly and fix whatever problems they may have had on the set through VFX, editing, and reshoots.
But that strategy has only gotten worse as it continuously applies to every aspect of the production. “We’ll fix it later” shouldn’t be good enough, they’ve just realized. “Maybe we should have a functioning script before we start rolling cameras, or we’ll end up with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania”. “Maybe we should make sure our creative partners are comfortable or we’ll get Secret Invasion”.
Marvel Studios shut down the set of Daredevil: Born Again in New York in June after weeks of forcing their talent to cross the WGA picket lines. It got unbearable and cameras stopped rolling, at which point Kevin Feige and his team started to take a look at the footage they had so far, which accounted for less than half the 18 episodes they’d ordered. Even with the series in such a raw state, they came to the following conclusion: This isn’t working. And it’s not an issue that will be fixed in post adding more CGI — in fact, the show is often more a legal drama than a superhero adventure, with the title hero not showing his mask until the fourth episode.
And that was not something that caught the executives by surprise. That had been the pitch by head writers Chris Ord and Matt Corman from the start, but it wasn’t until they saw the actual product that Marvel noticed it just wasn’t the right approach. Instead of continuing to throw money down the toilet to film a show that they knew wouldn’t match the fans’ expectations, especially as they try to follow up the critically acclaimed Netflix predecessor, they decided to scrap it altogether and go back to the drawing board. They fired everyone on board, from the writers to the directors of the rest of the season. The THR story says they plan to keep elements of what they’ve already shot and interject them with a new story, and that Ord and Corman will remain as executive producers on the two-season series.
It’s unknown how much of the current project will survive, from the announced 18-episode run (something Feige has said before he’s very excited about as he longs for the classic, long-running TV series) to the cast, which besides the two main characters of Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) and Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) also included Jon Bernthal as the Punisher and Alaqua Cox as Echo. Foggy and Karen’s involvement remains an unresolved question.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Marvel wants to go back to the traditional TV model. They want multiple-season shows focused on character rather than single-season TV events that serve as a piece of the franchise puzzle. Instead of shooting nine-figure shows with unfinished scripts and trying to figure it out as they go, they want to start with a pilot and go from there. They also want to go back to the showrunner role, as opposed to having a team of writers who are out-ranked once the director(s) come on board, and who themselves answer to a team of executive producers and studio execs. (This was thanks to Jessica Gao, who had left She-Hulk after serving as head writer once Kat Coiro came on board as director, but was then brought back to oversee post-production, a rare move for Marvel TV.)
This is the latest of many writing changes at Marvel Studios. Earlier this year, they hired Beef creator Lee Sung Jin to rewrite Thunderbolts, pretty much from scratch. Nic Pizzolatto, of True Detective fame, was brought on board to rewrite Blade and has apparently been told once again to start over, per the latest Internet hot rumor. Josh Friedman took over a lackluster Fantastic Four script earlier this year. And this is probably just the beginning. They know it’s not enough anymore to pay actors a lot of money and save costs on the writing side or the visual effects.
The studio hopes to get Deadpool 3 back up and running the moment actors end their strike, as according to TheWrap they intend to keep the May 3, 2024, release date. (This seems more and more questionable every day, especially in light of studios and SAG-AFTRA hitting an impasse in their negotiations.) They luckily have Captain America: Brave New World in post, but failed to start filming Thunderbolts before the stoppage. That film is now targeting a December 2024 date, but who knows if they’ll be able to hit it. Fantastic Four should film in the spring, according to Matt Shakman, and they have their cast ready to be announced once the strike is settled.
But here’s the point: who cares if they actually hit their release date? Yes, Disney would probably like that money as fast as possible, especially amid their recent lack of cash, but they’ve learned to let Marvel work and have them hand over a billion dollars every few months. Box office is at a low point for the studio at the moment, and projections for The Marvels are not great. As of now, the studio would only have one theatrical film ready for next year, the Anthony Mackie-led Captain America film. Deadpool 3 should be ready as well, even if they don’t put it out in May, but Thunderbolts is a whole other story.
However, this is yet more proof that they are taking things slowly. The same goes for their Disney Plus slate. Shows like Ironheart or Agatha: Darkhold Diaries (or whatever name it has now) have been in post for months, and are not expected for a while. Echo has also been in post-production for a long time, and is now expected in January.
2023 will likely be known as the Great Marvel Studios Correction, just as 2022 was the Great Netflix Correction. The studio now knows that more doesn’t necessarily equal better or even the same results. They diluted the brand a lot in 2021 and 2022, and all indications seem to be that they want better and more spread out projects, and they will do whatever they find necessary to make sure that happens, from having projects in post-production as long as necessary to scrapping others halfway through shooting.
Currently out for Marvel Studios is Loki season 2, airing new episodes on Thursday nights. On November 10, The Marvels comes out.
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.
