Before joining hands with DC for the Wonder Woman movies, Patty Jenkins was a major choice for heading Marvel’s Thor: The Dark World. However, the director and the DC-rival didn’t get along and we got to see the much-criticized Alan Taylor version of the movie. According to Jenkins, she hates a specific thing about Marvel Studios- the lack of creative control given to the filmmakers.
Many prominent filmmakers have repeatedly discussed how major superhero studios don’t let their directors work freely on the projects. From the case of 33 rewrites on the script of Doctor Strange 2 to the highly infamous Josstice League, studio intervention never led to anything good. And it is the same reason Patty Jenkins didn’t head the 2013 MCU movie.
Patty Jenkins hates how Marvel controls their directors
It is often discussed how Thor: The Dark World is one of the weakest movies in the entire MCU. Director Patty Jenkins was almost associated with the project before Game Of Thrones filmmaker Alan Taylor was brought on board. In an interview with the French magazine Premiere (via Comicbook), the 52-year-old spoke about how Marvel denies creative freedom to its directors.
Even though Wonder Woman 1984 wasn’t a memorable venture, it doesn’t make the excellence of Patty Jenkins in the first Wonder Woman movie a lie. The director called out the Kevin Feige studio’s nature, complaining about how they never let the true vision of their filmmakers come out. The Monster director enjoys filmmaking and can’t work under such conditions.
“I really like the people who work there, but they want full control over their movies. The director is under control. Yes, it can happen. Furthermore, It shows immediately if a director cannot impose his/her vision. When this is the case, I get the impression that these people are doing a different job than me. But with Wonder Woman 1984, I think I did exactly what I wanted. And then, everything a superhero movie needs comes naturally to me: I love shooting great action scenes versus great sets. I really enjoy it.”
Patty Jenkins admitted that she doesn’t care about the responsibilities of superhero universes or continuities but only focuses on telling a story. She also added that she was the initial choice for heading the Justice League. But the director isn’t a fan of working with so many characters.
Interestingly, when Alan Taylor got associated with the project, he also called out the studio for how his vision was badly altered by the Kevin Feige fortress.
Alan Taylor’s vision was hampered by Marvel Studios
According to Alan Taylor, when he was brought to direct Thor: The Dark World, he had a totally different vision of the project than what we saw. While speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Taylor revealed how several crucial changes were made by the studio in the post-production.
“The version I had started off with had more childlike wonder; there was this imagery of children, which started the whole thing. There was a slightly more magical quality. There was weird stuff going on back on Earth because of the convergence that allowed for some of these magical realism things. And there were major plot differences that were inverted in the cutting room and with additional photography.”
Alan Taylor was confident that his version was far better than the final output we saw on-screen. It can’t be denied that among all the negative things in the MCU, this is one of the most important ones. It gets hard for most filmmakers to work under such pressure without getting the choice to exercise complete creative freedom.
Source: Comicbook / The Hollywood Reporter
