The Marvels director Nia DaCosta says that superhero fatigue exists. DaCosta also cowrote the upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe movie starring Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris, Iman Vellani, Zawe Ashton, Park Seo-joon, and Samuel L. Jackson.
“I think superhero fatigue absolutely exists,” says DaCosta to Total Film. “The biggest difference from the other MCU movies to date is that [The Marvels is] really wacky and silly. The worlds we go to in this movie are worlds unlike others you’ve seen in the MCU. Bright worlds that you haven’t seen before.”
In an interview with Vanity Fair, DaCosta says she consulted with other MCU directors — Chloé Zhao (Eternals), James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy) and Taika Waititi (Thor: Ragnarok) — before accepting The Marvels gig. “Are they going to kill me and destroy my soul? Is Kevin Feige a bad man?” DaCosta asked them, jokingly. “And they were like, ‘No, he’s just a good guy who was a nerd.’”
Nia DaCosta Says That Some Days She Felt “Overwhelmed” on The Marvels Set
DaCosta tells Vanity Fair that on tough shooting days she would text Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings director Destin Daniel Cretton, writing “I'm overwhelmed” or “I'm so stressed.” She continues, “Sometimes you’d be in a scene and you’d be like, ‘What the h–l does any of this s–t 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 directed the crime thriller Little Woods and the reboot of Candyman before joining the MCU as both its youngest director and first Black woman to helm a feature. “When I go into those rooms, I’m really just like, ‘This is what I want,’ ” says DaCosta. “I’m not trying to figure out what they want, so I don’t have those kinds of nerves.”
The official description for The Marvels reads: “Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel has reclaimed her identity from the tyrannical Kree and taken revenge on the Supreme Intelligence. But unintended consequences see Carol shouldering the burden of a destabilized universe. When her duties send her to an anomalous wormhole linked to a Kree revolutionary, her powers become entangled with that of Jersey City super-fan Kamala Khan, aka Ms. Marvel, and Carol’s estranged niece, now S.A.B.E.R. astronaut Captain Monica Rambeau.”
DaCosta tells Vanity Fair, “It was really great to play in this world, and to be a part of building this big world, but it made me just want to build my own world more.”
The Marvels opens in theaters everywhere on November 10.