Coralie Fargeat turned down Marvel’s Black Widow to make The Substance

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The Substance director Coralie Fargeat has revealed that she could have instead been the director of Marvel’s Black Widow.


Starring Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley, wildly satirical body horror The Substance has emerged as one of the most acclaimed films of 2024, and has since been nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture. In a surprising twist, its director, French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat, has revealed that her film may never have happened if she’d responded to the lure of Marvel (and its deep, deep pockets).

In an interview with Variety that’s well worth a read, Fargeat reveals that Marvel offered her the chance to direct the 2020 film Black Widow following the critical success of her absorbing and propulsive 2017 thriller, Revenge. Fargeat reveals that even though she was “broke” at the time, she resisted the financial muscle of Marvel’s offer because she didn’t believe Marvel would grant her final cut. (Black Widow, released in 2021, was ultimately directed by Cate Shortland.)

Instead, in a story that equals any filmmaker’s journey to success, Fargeat wrote The Substance on spec, without any assurances that her film would ever see the light of day (or earn her a living). Universal backed it – and then sold it off when Fargeat refused to tone down the purity of her body horror vision.

It’s a marked contrast from the career path of director Chloe Zhao, who made the Oscar-winning film Nomadland before signing up to make 2021’s Eternals; it was particularly sad to see a celebrated young talent ceding so much creative control to the Marvel machine. After all, this is a process which – according to Victoria Alonso, one of the studio’s former producers – doesn’t allow its directors to direct their own films.

In the years since Eternals, Zhao has returned to original projects, with Hamnet releasing later this year and promising a fictionalised spin on the life of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway (not that one)as they deal with the death of their son. It feels like the kind of material that Zhao should be able to work wonders with and we’re excited to see what kind of story emerges.

As for Coralie Fargeat, she stands as the director of one of the year’s most original and acclaimed films. It’s a great story, and one that might help propel The Substance to even more recognition as this year’s awards season continues.

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