The Marvels director Nia DaCosta has explained how her franchise experience with the 2021 Candyman reboot prepared her to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
In an exclusive interview with GamesRadar+ promoting the upcoming sequel to 2019’s Captain Marvel, DaCosta spoke about her love for Marvel Comics growing up and how she dreamed of directing an MCU movie while cutting her teeth making independent films. Having directed the Candyman reboot starring Aquaman‘s Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, DaCosta explained what she learned in making a studio tentpole movie and how she applied it to her MCU project.
“On Candyman, it was like I had training wheels on to learn how to be a director inside of a studio system,” DaCosta said. “From a practical point of view, my first extensive VFX were on Candyman. It was nothing compared to this but you know, I didn’t have a VFX supervisor on my first film, and then I had one, so I knew how to work with that department head. On this one, though, that relationship is so much closer, so much deeper. But I had a bit of a jump start, I guess, from Candyman.”
She continued, “[Candyman] definitely helped because it was a big brand – not just MGM, but Jordan Peele is a brand in and of himself. It was an IP, too. Candyman is so well-loved, I loved Candyman when I was younger, and I love horror. But it got me kind of used to that One Man, Two Guvnors energy.”
DaCosta had previously spoken about the enormous task of directing the VFX sequences for The Marvels, which was worlds away from the grounded horror elements of Candyman. The work proved challenging at times, and DaCosta would lean on Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings director Destin Daniel Cretton to vent her exhaustion.
“Sometimes you’d be in a scene and you’d be like, ‘What the hell does any of this shit mean?’ Or an actor’s looking at some crazy thing happening in space, and they’re [actually] looking at a blue X. There were obviously hard days, and days where you’re like, ‘This just isn’t working,’” DaCosta recalled.
What is The Marvels about?
Directed by DaCosta and starring Brie Larson, The Marvels continues the story of the events from Captain Marvel and 2022’s Ms. Marvel series on Disney+. Its premise finds Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) investigating an intergalactic wormhole when her powers get entangled with Carol Danvers and Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) to the point where they swap bodies. The film co-stars Zawe Ashton, Gary Lewis, Park Seo-Joon, and Samuel L. Jackson.
The Marvels is scheduled for release in theaters on November 10.
