The last two films to come out of Marvel Studios – Thor: Love & Thunder (now in cinemas) and Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness (now on Disney+) – have both done the expected huge levels of business. Yet the films have both also come in for criticism, with the quality of the visual effects work on the movies in particular being cited.
Marvel’s pipeline of work now covers a regular run of television shows for the Disney+ platform, as well as a trio of big movies a year. But over at The Gamer, reasons for the apparent drop in visual effects standards have come to light.
The outlet has uncovered a long debate amongst working VFX artists, citing the ‘crunch’ conditions that some of the work is being produced under; that deadlines are proving to be incredibly tight, and a series of anonymous contributors have taken to Reddit to air their grievances.
Lest our lawyers – or more importantly, Marvel’s – are reading, these claims have not been substantiated, and nor has Marvel commented. But in the absence of concrete reasons why effects standards appear to be slipping, they certainly appear to fit the narrative.
It kicked off with one user writing “Marvel has probably the worst methodology of production and VFX management out there. They can never fix the look for the show before more than half the allocated time for the show is over. The artists working on Marvel shows are definitely not paid equivalent to the amount of work they put in. The charm for working on a Marvel movie is way over rated now and I would rather be happy working on a TV series after decades and decades of this. Sorry but had to get it off my chest. ;)”.
What followed was nearly 200 comments, including many working in the industry who ask not to work on Marvel productions, and a whole lot more recruiting and/or looking for jobs.
The headliners, though, include comments such as “They can never fix the look for the show before more than half the allocated time for the show is over. The artists working on Marvel shows are definitely not paid equivalent to the amount of work they put in” and “I request to not work on [Marvel] movies and TV shows. Unfortunately, they’re becoming our biggest client. They expect a smorgasbord of options so they can change their mind three more times”.
You can read the full thread here.
Whether it all makes any difference, and whether standards improve, remains to be seen. For now, there appears to be trouble in the Marvel multiverse…
