Director Offered Black Widow Claims Marvel Only Wants Male Directors For Action Scenes

In an interview with The Daily Pioneer, director Lucrecia Martel revealed that she was offered the job of directing Black Widow for Marvel, but she wasn’t going to be allowed to direct the action sequences. Here are highlights:

On getting the job offer: “I received an e-mail from Marvel for a meeting. Because they were looking for directors for ‘Black Widow’. So I went to the reunion. I actually signed this thing where I can’t talk about that reunion. Marvel and other such production houses are trying to involve more female filmmakers.”

On not getting the job: “I do believe another female director is making the movie (now). What they told me in the meeting was ‘we need a female director because we need someone who is mostly concerned with the development of Scarlett Johansson’s character.’

On the problem with the offer: “They also told me ‘don’t worry about the action scenes, we will take care of that.’ I was thinking, well I would love to meet Scarlett Johansson but also I would love to make the action sequences. Companies are interested in female filmmakers but they still think action scenes are for male directors. The first thing I asked them was maybe if they could change the special effects because there’s so many laser lights… I find them horrible. Also the soundtrack of Marvel films is quite horrendous. Maybe we disagree on this but it’s really hard to watch a Marvel film. It’s painful to the ears to watch Marvel films. But just in case any of this is going to be on YouTube, I would love to make ‘Black Widow’.”