Nia DaCosta has been reflecting on her experience on directing The Marvels for Marvel Studios, which came with its ups and downs.
Director Nia DaCosta tipped her toes into the MCU with 2023’s The Marvels – her ambitious but flawed sequel to Captain Marvel. The film received middling reviews and was a box office disappointment, failing to break even in cinemas.
Speaking at Storyline, the second annual screenwriting festival in Dublin, DaCosta reflected on her time making The Marvels. As you might have guessed, DaCosta was a small part of a huge filmmaking machine and it came with certain expectations.
“They had a date, and they were prepping certain things, and you just have to lean into the process hardcore,” the director said in a chat with filmmaker Kate Dolan, as reported by Deadline. “The way they make those films is very different to the way, ideally, I would make a film, so you just have to lean into the process and hope for the best. The best didn’t happen this time but you kind of have to trust in the machine.”
Trusting the machine didn’t quite work out for DaCosta, as she recounted how different The Marvels ended up being from her original vision.
Read more: The Marvels review | Promising sequel gets bogged down in MCU lore
“It was interesting, because there was a certain point when I was like, ‘Ok, this isn’t going to be the movie that I pitched or even the first version of the movie that I shot’ so I realised that this is now an experience and it’s a learning curve and it really makes you stronger as a filmmaker in terms of your ability to navigate.”
The Marvels remains Marvel’s lowest grossing film, but DaCosta hasn’t let that slow her down. She’s currently in production for 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple which will arrive in cinemas in January 2026. The Candyman director is also prepping Hedda, a new adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s play Hedda Gabler. Hedda will reunite DaCosta with Tessa Thompson, who appeared in DaCosta’s feature film debut Little Woods as well as The Marvels.
