Marvel prioritized the visual effects of ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ over ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’

Marvel once again dominates the worldwide box office thanks to ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’, but Peyton Reed’s film has failed to break the rather weak streak of impressions in which the franchise has plunged since the beginning of the Phase . the installment of Scott Lang’s adventures has 48% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, being the second worst received UCM by critics (only “Eternals” is below with 47% positive reviews). One of the biggest negative points that reviews tend to agree on is that the visual effects are nowhere near what you’d expect from Marvel Studios or a blockbuster these days., even comparing them to the “Spy Kids” movies. But the VFX crisis is something that has been a huge porcelain in the shoe for Kevin Feige’s studio for quite some time.

The film industry has long given enormous weight to visual effects in films, and the arrival of streaming has multiplied the work, complicating the situation in an industry where there aren’t many hands for so many films and series. Last year, employees at VFX companies working on Marvel titles began openly criticizing the House of Ideas’ impossible timescales.coming to call them “bullies”signaling an atmosphere filled with intermediaries and hierarchies that need everything yesterday and are capable of changing an entire scene overnight.

Even ‘Quantumania’ has been affected by this crisis, as some cinema operators anonymously point out to Vulture. They say they had very tight schedules and very little work, to the point that two of the three interviewed artists say that many professionals were directed to the post-production of ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’, leaving them in a very precarious situation and even a sense of competition to see which film got the most skilled performers. “In terms of priorities, “Wakanda Forever” topped the list. All the money went there. The best resources were there” explains a visual effects technician, who also indicates that they have been made “many editorial changes” in the last sections of the film, without enough time or equipment to make them as they should: “You can see there were shortcuts. Some things were used to cover up unfinished work. Some editorial cuts were made to not show all the action or effects that could have been, probably because there wasn’t enough time to render everything. (…) It actually seems that certain scenes have been cut or altered to save money, time or to cover up the impossibility of making it”. This employee explains that they haven’t complained why “You don’t want to do anything that jeopardizes your livelihood. You assume you don’t have the power to say anything against it. You can’t say ‘This is bullshit, can’t we do better?’, because it’s never going to happen.”. He believes that Marvel Studios has enough money to provide better conditions and more manpower to not get so drowned, and he believes that if they don’t, it’s simple “human greed”.

Among the Leonine conditions they comment on, they admit it some artists worked as many as 80 hours a week to finish their work on time. Another employee complains how morale was “particularly bad” and working conditions “less than ideal”, but that “Quantumania” is just a case of many who have already suffered. He indicates that the chaos was such that he sometimes had colleagues who had nothing to do, just standing by in case of need. Another worker from another studio expresses frustration that the mess was such “two-second scenes had to be redone twenty times to get what they wanted”. I guess that’s the problem “With so many projects going on at once, resources are scarce and quality is starting to suffer. You can’t expect every VFX company to deliver high quality work, especially if you’re doing it on a shoestring budget”.

Why did ‘The Marvels’ delay its release?

With the UCM there is also another drawback: the plan. A franchise so large and with so many titles in both theaters and Disney+ requires everything to go relatively smoothly to avoid changes in release dates that perhaps cannot be allowed due to the domino effect. Though alarms must be sounding a lot in the Marvel Studios offices as we recently saw a substantial date change in one of the upcoming releases. ‘The Marvels’, the return of Captain Marvel (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever), has postponed its arrival in summer theaters to November 10, and according to The Wrap it is precisely for “give you more time to complete post-production”. It’s been a few months, but something is something. However, the problem will continue to exist as long as Marvel continues with this rate of releases (and that’s not to mention the rest of the work that comes from other studios, platforms and chains). The relationship with the visual effects companies and their working conditions will be one of the main obstacles that the industry will have to solve before the rope snaps under so much tension.