2008. 2012. 2019. These and many others will go down in film history as banner years for Marvel Studios — years that established, cemented, and proved beyond all doubt that the MCU was the biggest franchise in the world. 2023, though? Not so much.

It’s no secret that, since 2020, Marvel has been on much less surer footing than it was during the golden Infinity Saga era, but even by the end of 2022 there was still much hope and excitement for the future. Compare that to where things stand at the end of 2023, where even the existence of Avengers 5 — surely the safest bet on Marvel’s slate — is shrouded in doubt and mystery.

So, to put it plainly, what the heck happened? To be fair, various external events impacted on Marvel’s year in ways it could not have foreseen, but wherever the fault lies, these 10 mistakes are what caused the franchise to transform in just 12 months from the MCU to the MC-eww.

10. Hiring Jonathan Majors as Kang

Let’s just get the obvious one out of the way first. At the start of the year, choosing to hang the Kang Dynasty on Jonathan Majors looked to be a smart bet. Quantumania bombed (more on that in a moment), but his intense performance in it certainly wowed fans. And then things took a shocking turn. In March, Majors was arrested for domestic violence charges and he faces up to a year in prison if his ongoing trial goes against him. Majors’ career has otherwise dried up, but as far as we know, he remains attached to Marvel for the remainder of the Multiverse Saga. It seems that, as long as the actor keeps on being Kang, the MCU will continually be overshadowed by ugly off-screen events.

9. Making Ant-Man all-important

Unfortunately, Quantumania had enough problems on its plate before all the Majors drama came to light. Although trailers were enticing, once we got to see the threequel it became abundantly clear that attempting to crowbar Ant-Man, the little Marvel hero who could, into a leading Iron Man/Captain America-style character whose job it is to kick off Phase Five, was a terrible idea. The whole appeal of the first two films is their, well, small-scale storytelling, divorced from the wider franchise. Quantumania, meanwhile, creaks under the strain of upholding the entire Multiverse Saga on its shoulders. Ants may be able to lift 10 times their own weight, but not this much.

8. Producer Victoria Alonso fired amid mysterious circumstances

2023 seemed to bring one PR disaster after another for Marvel, and the same month of Majors’ arrest saw long-term studio producer Victoria Alonso suddenly let go from the company. Officially, Alonso was thrown under the bus for producing a movie for Amazon, and allegedly breaking her noncompete agreement, but other rumors swirled that her pro-LGBTQ+ stance was at odds with Disney’s amid the whole “Don’t Say Gay” debacle. Whatever the truth of it, the loss of Alonso — widely viewed as Kevin Feige’s right-hand woman — signaled to the world that things were not going entirely smoothly behind the scenes at the House of Ideas.

7. Revenge of the VFX artists

Audiences’ growing dissatisfaction with CGI in Marvel movies reached a head in 2023, thanks to the release of Quantumania — with its sludgy rendering of the Quantum Realm environment and the general uncanniness of M.O.D.O.K. garnering much criticism. In a shocking expose, VFX artists hit back to defend their reputations, revealing the harsh working conditions they’ve been put under and poor management on Marvel’s part (Alonso was implicated in this too). Ultimately, Marvel’s VFX artists officially unionized, which should hopefully see an uptick in their working experience as well as ensure a better quality of visuals on screen.

6. Letting James Gunn go

Perhaps this isn’t a problem that necessarily arose in 2023, but this year certainly brought Marvel’s folly into sharper focus. James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is easily the most acclaimed MCU movie of the year — it earned the most money, the best reviews, and it’s even landed itself a Golden Globe nomination. Unfortunately, Gunn’s not around to capitalize on this success and help Marvel save itself as he’s busy becoming Kevin Feige’s chief rival over at DC, building on a relationship he established with Warner Bros. following Disney’s attempt at firing him back in 2018. We’ll have to see how the Superman: Legacy vs. Thunderbolts battle goes in July 2025 before we can say how bad a mistake this was, but the odds are certainly in Superman’s favor.

5. The entire Secret Invasion finale

The egregious errors littered through Secret Invasion‘s infamous finale could fill an entire other listicle (oh, wait, they already have). From the nonsensical resolution to the awful CGI used in the Super-Skrull fight (again, not blaming you, VFX team!) to the awkward disconnection from The Marvels, Secret Invasion‘s last hour turned what was once a hugely promising noir thriller series into yet another embarrassment for a saga that already has far too many as it is. No wonder, in the wake of its release, Marvel was announced to be tearing down its current TV-making process and starting again from scratch.

4. The un-timely debut of Victor Timely

Thank God (Loki) for Loki season 2. Like Guardians 3, it was a rare treat beloved by pretty much the whole wide fandom. Although critics and casual viewers were left more than a little confused, the finale — in particular — was one of the strongest, smartest pieces of Marvel production we’ve had since Phase Three. And yet there’s one, well, major decision that ended up biting the show in the behind. At a time when the franchise really needed to distance itself from him, Jonathan Majors returned as Kang variant Victor Timely (albeit a role filmed before his arrest). Due to no fault of its own, the discourse around Loki‘s second season became somewhat dominated by Majors’ inclusion. Especially as Tom Hiddleston wasn’t around to be the show’s poster boy.

3. Ignoring the SAG-AFTRA strike

We can’t blame Marvel Studios specifically for both the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes that plagued Hollywood in 2023, but it’s up for argument if it handled the situation as best it could. Its 2024 and 2025 releases falling back like dominoes couldn’t be helped, but Marvel’s decision to drop Loki season 2 and, in particular, The Marvels in the fall, which meant the actors couldn’t help promote them, surely is at least partially the reason for the former’s vanishing viewing figures and the latter’s much-publicized box office bombing. Warner Bros., for example, knew enough to hold up Dune: Part Two until next spring, where it likely stands a stronger chance of performing. Who knows what could’ve happened to The Marvels if it had been released at a different time?

2. Marketing The Marvels

Saying the effects of the SAG strikes are the only reason for The Marvels‘ failure would be disingenuous, though, as clearly its status as the lowest-grossing MCU movie of all time is the result of various contributing factors. The movie’s marketing is definitely one of the biggest. For months, Marvel seemed happy to promote this one as a carefree, mid-level Marvel film that was mostly just a bit of fun. That might’ve worked back in the 2010s, but that wasn’t cutting it with the much more discerning moviegoers of the 2020s. When tracking was looking dangerously low, Marvel performed a sharp pivot, desperately attempting to hook us in with sepia-colored Avengers: Endgame clips and even spoiling the post-credits scene (usually a big no-no). But it was too late, the damage was done. Now we’re left to wonder if Marvel’s forgotten the magic of marketing its way to billion-dollar success.

1. Letting the world take the MCU for granted

The ultimate problem that’s plagued the MCU in 2023, however, is that Marvel fatigue ⏤ once a mere myth peddled by its doomsaying critics ⏤ genuinely does seem to be a real thing. This is something that’s been building for years, perhaps ever since Avengers: Endgame, but it’s fair to say that 2023 is the year that people really started drifting away from the franchise en masse. The tragedy is that Marvel has blindly assumed that the public’s love for the universe would continue automatically, so by pumping out content on both the big and small screens, the studio allowed for people to take the MCU’s existence for granted. With only one film coming in 2024, Marvel now has a prime opportunity to take stock and allow audiences to actually miss the MCU and get hungry for more again. Even if Deadpool 3 does promise to be a full meal on its own…

Marvel’s visual effects team has taken a boatload of flack for the MCU’s shoddy quality in recent years, but the time may have come for Kevin Feige to face the music. 

You it. I it. No one can forget the time when Marvel’s Disney Plus series She-Hulk: Attorney at Law unveiled its first look at Tatiana Maslany’s Jade Giantess, only to cause an entire meltdown on the internet over what appeared to be a half-baked attempt to render a video game-looking character onto the small screen. 

At the time, Victoria Alonso, the former president of physical production, post-production, VFX, and animation at Marvel Studios, was blamed for the fiasco, but according to a staffer who worked on She-Hulk, the real blame belongs to Feige. 

“The so-called bad VFX we see was because of half-baked scripts,” they said, according to Variety. “That is not Victoria. That is Kevin. And even above Kevin. Those issues should be addressed in preproduction. The timeline is not allowing the Marvel executives to sit with the material.”

The way they put it, She-Hulk experienced a massive alteration to its script that essentially turned episode 8 — the episode depicting the origin story of Maslany’s She-Hulk — into episode 1. Consequently, the VFX team was left scrambling to meet the unexpected deadline, the first of many last-minute changes that have eroded Marvel’s team from the inside out. All because Feige jumped on board too late in the game, long after the scripts had been written, the scenes had been shot, and the post-production work had been started. 

Feige’s bread-and-butter approach to the MCU has always been to work his magic in post-production, once everything’s been completed, so he can give the thumbs up or the thumbs down. But due to the studio’s never-ending stream of Phase Four and Phase Five projects, he’s been “spread thin” and his last-minute onboards have become less and less effective. 

Not only has this practice caused a decrease in quality, but also an increase in frivolous spending on avoidable changes. She-Hulk wound up spending around $25 million per episode, more than even the final season of Game of Thrones spent on its finale episode for its grandiose and climactic battle sequence, according to the report.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania experienced a similar outcry of shock for its VFX when the post-credit scene revealed an army of Kang variants that looked just as bad as Maslany’s Green Goliath. Except this time, it was on the big screen. 

“There were at least 10 scenes where the visual effects had been added at the last minute and were out of focus,” commented one veteran power broker regarding Quantumania. “It was insane. I’ve never seen something like that in my entire career. Everyone was talking about it. Even the kids of executives were talking about it.”

Marvel’s unrealistic deadlines and lack of front-end quality control resulted in its VFX team voting to unionize this past August. Disney’s VFX team quickly followed suit a few weeks after. Should Marvel Studios wish to prevent its VFX erosion from spreading to other aspects of the MCU (if it hasn’t already), it might be high time Feige and co. change their approach to filmmaking. The fate of the multiverse depends on it.

Even though it won near-unanimous critical acclaim to rack up a 95 percent Rotten Tomatoes score, before going on to win a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film and secure a nomination in the corresponding category at the Academy Awards, the lasting legacy of Argentina, 1985 more than likely won’t have anything to do with the movie itself.

Instead, history may well choose to it as the production that led to longtime Marvel Studios executive being fired from her position after almost two decades due to a breach of contract, which in turn led her to publicly blast the Mouse House with some unsavory accusations, before a settlement was eventually reached prior to either side airing any more dirty laundry.

Kevin Feige’s right hand was in the bad books for agreeing to produce Argentina, 1985 without notifying the right people at Disney, who have a special committee that either approves or denies requests for employees to work on outside projects. Disobeying the mighty Mickey anyway, Alonso ended up paying with her job.

The good news is that the incendiary historical drama has secured some brand new trophies, after it took home six trophies at the Platino Awards including Best Ibero-American Fiction Film, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, and the Audience Award. It may not be enough to distance it from the contractual and legal shenanigans that followed in the aftermath, but it’s already started to look as though the headlines indirectly emanating from Argentina, 1985 have encouraged audiences to check it out.

It wouldn’t be another day at Disney if major news wasn’t breaking.

In addition to several Spider-Man movies finally finding a home at Disney Plus (it only took four years!), the company seems to have ironed out the cavernous wrinkles from Victoria Alonso’s shocking firing from Marvel Studios last month. Peter Pan & Wendy is now T-minus seven days until its official release on Disney Plus, so what better way to ring in the occasion than with a new trailer? And if that weren’t enough, we have a new Haunted Mansion poster. So, let’s dive in. 

Spider-Man is finally swinging onto Disney Plus, and not just Tom Holland’s Peter Parker  

In the four years since Disney Plus launched in 2019, all eight Spider-Man movies have remained confusingly separate from all of Marvel’s other superhero films. However, thanks to a long-term contractual agreement between Sony and Marvel, that’s finally changing. 

Come April 21, all of Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man movies will be available to stream on Disney Plus. Andrew Garfield’s The Amazing Spider-Man too, but only the first one. 

As for Tom Holland’s Peter Parker — Spider-Man: Homecoming will swing onto the platform a couple of weeks after its predecessors on May 12. Only Homecoming, though. Disney did not specify why or when Far From Home and No Way Home will follow suit, but we’re hoping it’ll happen sooner rather than later. In the meantime, we’ll take the win where we can get it. 

Here’s a breakdown of all the Spider-Man movies coming to Disney Plus along with their release dates.

Disney reaches a multimillion-dollar settlement with former VFX chief, Victoria Alonso, who was shockingly let go after 17 years

When it was discovered that Marvel Studios let go of former VFX chief Victoria Alonso, the fandom had only one word: “Uh-oh.” While the ordeal has been riddled with conspiracies, the exact details of the firing remain confidential. So do the specifics surrounding the settlement. Whether the settlement is the result of hush-hush information kept away from the public or the acknowledgment of 17 years worth of hard work remains as unclear as Marvel’s future.

Tinker Bell is both all the range and all the controversy in the new Peter Pan & Wendy, but one thing is certain — Yara Shahidi sparkles as bright as pixie dust 

There have been over a dozen Peter Pan movies in the last 100 years (yes, 100). Yet, Disney’s Peter Pan & Wendy is receiving the most controversy out of all of them, and it doesn’t take a genius to know why. Like Halle Bailey with The Little Mermaid, actress Yara Shahidi couldn’t care less about the racist trolls, and is steadfast in her belief that this version of the movie tells “a story that feels reflective of the times that we’re in.” She also says “every change was extremely intentional.”

Plus, her version of Tink draws some major inspiration from Julia Roberts’, so it’s basically guaranteed to be good.

Peter Pan & Wendy is just one of many attempts by Disney to reignite another Renaissance. Whether it succeeds is still up in the air, but one thing is certain — we’ll be here to let you know. Stay tuned for more news and updates.

After the shocking exit of Victoria Alonso from Marvel Studios, The Walt Disney Company has agreed to a settlement deal with the former Marvel VFX chief.

The former Marvel executive was represented by her lawyers during this meeting with Disney and managed to settle on a deal a few days later. Deadline reported that while the details of that meeting with Disney remain confidential, Alfonso maybe has received a multimillion-dollar compensation deal. Neither Disney nor Alfonso’s representatives have commented on the settlement.

Alfonso announced her exit from Marvel Studios back in March 2023, after over 10 years of service as the president of physical, post-production, VFX, and animation. Days prior to her exit, she attended the 95th Academy Awards, where it was reported that she spotted two female photographers on the red carpet and asked them to pose with her on the giant Oscar statue. She also left a comment, saying “We’ve worked so hard to get here and we’re not going anywhere.”  

While details about her exit were not disclosed, theories circulated on the internet, especially when it came to the “toxic work environment” for VFX artists. Artists that worked for Alonso revealed that Marvel Studios was “unable to give clear guidelines” and that the former executive would “blacklist artists” who “pissed her off” in any way.

Both she and Disney’s legal team released statements about the exit since the news went public. According to Alfonso’s legal team, they alleged that Disney let go of the executive because she “had the courage to criticize Disney” and was silenced by the company. They also believed that it was her race, gender, and sexual identity that made her a target for the company. Meanwhile, Disney claimed that Alfonso was fired because of ” “an indisputable breach of contract and a direct violation of company policy.” 

It was reported that Marvel Studios executive Kevin Feige didn’t intervene to save her job and that she would be replaced.

Having already done a stellar job of burning down the remnants of the old DCU by watching Black Adam get pushed towards the exit – taking both his involvement in the franchise and Henry Cavill’s Superman along for the ride – Dwayne Johnson has completely and entirely accidentally set his sights on doing the exact same over at Marvel Studios.

In a development that’s so bizarre and outlandish you couldn’t possibly hope to make it up, a further report into the firing of long-tenured executive Victoria Alonso revealed that one of the main driving forces behind her acrimonious exit was a failure to notify Disney’s Management Audit Organization about her intentions to work on Academy Award-nominated documentary Argentina, 1985.

The example used was fellow Mouse House boardroom member Sean Bailey, who sought approval from the powers-that-be before he was permitted to invest in Johnson’s tequila brand Teremana. In a way, then, The Rock is being used as the shining example of how not to find yourself exiled from the most successful film and TV saga in the history of the business. Who would have thought?

In a circumstantial coincidence, not too long after the good name of Teremana was indicted in the ongoing investigation into Alonso being booted from the MCU, the actor and producer hopped onto Instagram to make a point of shilling his own success yet again.

One person who won’t be downing the Teremana is Alonso, of that we can be sure, but maybe she should have taken a leaf out of former colleague Bailey’s book before going ahead and taking outside gigs that don’t involve Mickey’s empire, especially when the tequila is doing booming business.

What once was a major red flag for Marvel now seems to be the least of its worries. The year started with the release of Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania — the grand opener to the Marvel Cinematic Universe‘s Phase Five, spruced up by the big, majorly anticipated reveal of Jonathan Majors as Kang The Conqueror, aka the Avengers’ new worst nightmare. The movie flopped, both critically and at the box office.

Following other disappointments like Black Widow, Eternals, Thor 4, and Multiverse of Madness, the scenario painted by Ant-Man 3‘s performance wasn’t boding well at all for the future of Marvel, but fast-forward about a month and the superhero studio would be going through what might very well be its most hellish week yet, to the point where the commercial viability of future projects has become almost an afterthought.

On March 20th, the news that trusted exec Victoria Alonso would be exiting Marvel Studios came out of nowhere. Alonso had been at the company for 17 years and was one of the main creatives behind the inception of what is now largely regarded as the greatest superhero franchise of all time. Five days later, Jonathan Majors, the face Marvel chose to headline the Multiverse Saga, and frankly, the only salvageable aspect of Quantumania, was arrested for allegedly assaulting a woman. Fans instantly called for a recast, but Marvel has yet to comment on Majors’ future in the series.

While we’re yet to get to the bottom of both Alonso’s firing and Majors’ arrest, to be hit with two blows as scandalous as these, at the same time as the reports that Quantumania is unlikely to break even at the box office start coming through, could prove to be more than the comics giant can handle. Not even the pandemic painted a picture as bleak as this, and 2023 is shaping up to be the MCU’s most problematic year yet.

The good news is that — although Alonso was someone who had a complete understanding of the MCU identity, and her firing could be indicative of the cracks in Marvel’s wall — as the former President of Physical, Post Production, VFX, and Animation at Marvel, considering the scrutiny the franchise’s latest visual effects have come under, maybe a change in leadership might just be a blessing in disguise.

Jonathan Majors’ situation, on the other hand, is still very much up in the air, with conflicting reports coming through from the authorities and the actor’s legal team. Majors was set to play a vital role in season two of Loki, Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, and probably Avengers: Secret Wars. Many were banking on Majors to carry the MCU through the rut it is currently experiencing, considering how talented of an actor he is, and how well he embodied the menacing Kang.

At this point, Majors’ case looks like it will be yet another questionable incident with an ambiguous conclusion, as cases like this often are. However, even if all charges are dropped, unless there’s undeniable proof that he is innocent, keeping Majors around could possibly alienate a chunk of the audience that was still hanging on to the MCU despite subpar recent installments. Paradoxically, firing the actor without him being found guilty first, might not sit well with a different portion of Marvel’s viewership. It’s a lose-lose, and all eyes will be on Marvel to see what it chooses to do.

As for Quantumania likely becoming the MCU’s biggest money-loser ever, the slate of movies and series to come should leave fans feeling somewhat more relaxed. Not only are the hugely requested Daredevil: Born Again and Deadpool 3 approaching release, but there’s also the fabulously cast Secret Invasion and Agatha: Coven of Chaos coming up. Not to mention Guardians of The Galaxy Vol. 3, The Marvels, Sam Wilson’s big debut as Captain America in New World Order, Armor Wars, Ironheart, Thunderbolts, Echo… Need we go on? All of these sound fantastic in theory, and it’s entirely up to Marvel whether they live up to the hype in reality, too.

Right now is a crucial moment for Marvel to decide whether it’s going to let the ship sink, or take up the reins to prove once again that it can weather any storm. The studios are already making sound decisions like spacing out releases to allegedly ease the pressure on the post-production team and casting mouth-watering talent like Olivia Colman, Steven Yeun, Matthew Macfadyen, and Aubrey Plaza. The tools are all there, Marvel just needs to adjust its focus in whatever setting it had going on during that legendary last stretch of the Infinity Saga.

An explosive battle between fired executive Victoria Alonso and her former employers at Marvel Studios and Disney is looming following her acrimonious exit after nearly two decades of dedicated servitude, but somehow Dwayne Johnson has managed to find his way into the conversation.

Shockwaves were sent around the industry when Kevin Feige’s most trusted lieutenant was kicked out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe 17 years into her tenure, but things got even spicier when Alonso’s lawyer claimed she was “silenced” by the Mouse House and “terminated when she refused to do something she believed was reprehensible.”

Firing back, Disney mounted a counteroffensive with a rebuttal stating that she was fired for “an indisputable breach of contract and a direct violation of company policy” that many have taken as her unauthorized involvement in Academy Award-nominated documentary Argentina, 1985. That may well have constituted her exit when any extracurricular activities need to be approved by the top brass, but where does Johnson fit into this?

In a report from Variety, it’s confirmed that Alonso working for Amazon Studios on the aforementioned doc saw her fail to notify Disney’s Management Audit Organization, who basically approve or deny any requests from contracted personnel to take part in projects outside of Mickey’s four walls.

One such person that did go to the committee was President of Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture Production Sean Bailey, who was given the okay to invest in Johnson’s Teremana tequila company. Alonso ignored the protocols and has reportedly paid the ultimate price for it, while someone even higher up the food chain was well within their rights to get in on The Rock’s booze line because they operated through the correct channels.

Marvel Studios’ executive team has been piling up a lot of controversy in recent weeks. The studio behind the world’s highest-grossing franchise has come under fire for poor work practices and workforce treatment in the visual effects department for the past year, the consequences of which were often visible in the VFX work in the franchise’s Phase Four projects. In response, Marvel Studios recently let Victoria Alonso, the company’s long-time Visual Effects Head, go, citing her as the reason for those allegations.

However, a report cited by The Hollywood Reporter suggests that Alonso’s termination might have been the result of her disagreements with the studio and her refusal to alter a sequence in Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania.

Allegedly, Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania featured a sequence featuring Pride decorations, mentioning the word on a storefront window during Paul Rudd’s first stroll down the busy streets of San Francisco. However, the scene caused issues for Marvel in Kuwait, where strict anti-LGBTQ laws are in place. Marvel Studios apparently wanted to blur that sequence to secure a release in Kuwait.

Alonso, who is gay herself, wasn’t on board with the decision. She had earlier challenged former Disney CEO Bob Chapek’s actions regarding Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill and has voiced for diversification in stories. Since Alonso refused to have her team work on the edit, Marvel went to an outside vendor to do the job. The Hollywood Reporter report claims that the film underwent several other changes before entering Kuwait’s market besides the removal of the reference to Pride.

Censorship for different markets is not new. There have been several instances where Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have asked film studios to remove content they find objectionable from productions. It’s not just Marvel or Disney, either; other Hollywood studios have also struggled with censorship rules in different markets.

There’s no telling if it were just this particular concern that led to Alonso’s firing. Alonso’s long-standing disagreements and past problems could have meant that the clash with Marvel over the sequence’s alteration was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Theories and fans’ opinions are still coming in concerning Alonso’s firing.

Representatives from Disney or Marvel have yet to comment on the report.

While DC’s drama is playing out for all to see right now, thanks to Zachary Levi’s unfiltered Instagram content, Marvel‘s own messy time of it is playing out more behind the scenes, and yet it could spell much grander trouble for the studio that would make Shazam! 2 bombing look small-fry. Elsewhere, an MCU veteran who already came close to donning the cape and cowl once talks the chances of him becoming James Gunn’s Batman. Let’s dive in…

Victoria Alonso drama intensifies as alleged unjust firing could lead to ‘serious consequences’ for Marvel Studios

The biggest unfolding Marvel story of the week has to be the shock firing of long-term Marvel Studios exec Victoria Alonso, widely considered to be Kevin Feige’s right-hand woman. The abrupt exit of the key team-member has now taken another bombshell turn, with Alonso’s lawyer claiming that she was unjustly terminated for taking a stand against Disney’s response to the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, threatening “serious consequences.” Marvel hasn’t been in this much legal trouble since the whole Scarlett Johansson/Black Widow situation. Expect more on this latest unexpected consequence of the Phase Five curse soon.

An underrated MCU alum wanted to be Zack Snyder’s Batman, but he’s not interested in doing the same for James Gunn

Scott Adkins might be finally getting his due as an unsung action hero, thanks to his transformative villain turn in John Wick: Chapter Four, but those who’ve been following his career for a while know that he previously almost landed a big break when he auditioned for the first title character in Batman v Superman. Though he later ed the MCU, as Lucian in Doctor Strange, Adkins is still waiting on that iconic superhero role of his own. Nonetheless, he’s revealed that he’s not looking to play the Dark Knight anymore, even with James Gunn searching for a new man to protect Gotham City in The Brave and the Bold.

Deadpool 3 rumors get nipped in the bud by the one person who knows more about the MCU timeline than anyone

Recently, Marvel fans got themselves hyped over rumors pointing to various Loki cast hopping over to face Ryan Reynolds’ Wade Wilson in Deadpool 3, with Owen Wilson top of the pack. Don’t go celebrating the start of the Mobius Cinematic Universe just yet, though, as cold water has now been poured on these reports by the most reliable source there is when it comes to the Earth-616 timeline. Miss Minutes herself Tara Strong is claiming she’s not heard anything about a Loki/Deadpool crossover, although she’s itted she couldn’t even tell us if she had. It’s a no for now, then, but just that Miss Minutes has a history of keeping secrets…

Guardians of the Galaxy fans are wishing Vol. 3 could be even longer than Avengers: Infinity War, but it sure won’t be long before more of the latest Marvel news comes your way.

Mouths were left wide open in shock when it was announced that longtime Marvel Studios executive Victoria Alonso had suddenly departed the company, especially when she’d been with the comic book conglomerate for almost 20 years, and had long since solidified herself as one of Kevin Feige’s most trusted lieutenants.

No reasons were given for her exit at the time, although it didn’t take long for the conspiracy theories emerge, but a string of recent bombshells have lit the touchpaper on what could be an explosive time for both Marvel and Disney. Alonso’s lawyer fired the first shot while addressing rumors that she’d been axed for working on Oscar-nominated documentary Argentina, 1985, and litigator Patty Glaser didn’t hold back.

Unloading with both barrels, Glaser alleged that “Victoria, a gay Latina who had the courage to criticize Disney, was silenced” and was ultimately “terminated when she refused to do something she believed was reprehensible,” but not before threatening the Mouse House and Marvel with “serious consequences.”

In response, Disney fired back with a statement of its own, revealing that Alonso was fired for “an indisputable breach of contract and a direct violation of company policy.” The scuttlebutt indicates that the ex-MCU veteran was forbidden from speaking to the media after blasting the family-friendly company’s handling of the “Don’t Say Gay” debacle, while additional hearsay offers that she got involved in Argentina, 1985 despite being expressly forbidden from doing so, which could be where the breach of contract comes into play.

We haven’t even mentioned whispers that she’d been pinpointed as the number one culprit in the franchise’s ongoing overworking of its VFX departments, so we’re a long way away from reaching the truth. Before then, it looks as though the situation is going to keep heating up.

VFX artists have taken the brunt during various post-production work for Marvel Studios, and despite the recent firing of Marvel’s president of physical production, post-production, VFX, and animation, Victoria Alonso, it didn’t quelled the outrage these artists have held onto for years, calling out the studio for its incompetency.

Ever since the MCU became a content powerhouse in Hollywood, VFX artists have revealed on social media all the ways Marvel Studios is a “terrible client.” Artists have reported toxic work environments when working on Marvel projects, and one also reported that Marvel didn’t credit them in Thor: Love and Thunder. So when it was announced that Alonso was laid off from Marvel, it sparked more outrage.

In an interview with Variety, one anonymous VFX artist revealed that one of the biggest issues they had with Marvel was its “inability to provide clear guidelines.” They also revealed that Marvel was unable to figure a lot of things out beforehand, which led to some Marvel projects being difficult to work on.

“The show I was on really struggled because it was an established character whose powers they were reconceiving for the MCU.

“Marvel doesn’t figure shit out beforehand.”

It was also reported that some VFX artists saw Alonso as someone who would “blacklist artist” if they “pissed her off” in any way. At the same time, artists would complain due to the lack of schedules, ever-changing delines, and how they’re understaffed. This is troubling, especially when visual effects are heavily needed in MCU projects.

“… Visual effects artists began to loudly complain about Marvel’s demanding post-production schedules. Complaints ranged from unrelenting overtime to chronic understaffing to the inability to avoid delivering substandard work due to constantly changing deadlines. Some singled out Alonso as a “kingmaker” who would blacklist artists who have “pissed her off in any way.” 

Recent Marvel films, like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, were criticized for their subpar visual effects. At the same time, artists have itted to taking shortcuts whenever they’re working on a Marvel project due to poor working conditions. The official cause of Alonso’s termination remains unknown at this time, and Marvel Studios has not yet announced Alonso’s replacement.