Nia DaCosta Reflects On ‘The Marvels’ & Teases Release Date For Upcoming Tessa Thompson Starrer ‘Hedda’ — Storyhouse

deadline.com:

Filmmaker Nia DaCosta said she had always wanted to make a Marvel movie because “she was a big comic book nerd growing up,” but revealed that the reality of directing the mega-budget 2023 studio film The Marvels was a far different experience than she could have imagined.

Speaking at Dublin’s second annual screenwriting festival in Dublin, the Little Woods and Candyman director admits that when she came aboard to direct The Marvels she “stepped into a system” and she had to “lean into the process.”  “They had a date, and they were prepping certain things, and you just have to lean into the process hardcore,” she said during a detailed conversation with filmmaker Kate Dolan. “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. “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 learning curve and it really makes you stronger as a filmmaker in terms of your ability to navigate.”  The Marvels was the lowest grossing film in the MCU after it was released in 2023, with net losses of the film sitting around $237M.

After the experience, DaCosta said she felt compelled to make something that would be almost an antidote to the studio system and the writer-director decided that her next project would be Hedda, her reimagining of Henrik Ibsen’s famed 1891 stage play Hedda Gabler.  “I called my team, and I said that I need to make Hedda,” she said. “I had written it years ago