The reason why Marvel’s movies—and even Disney’s recent live action movies (CINDERLLA and JUNGLE BOOK)—have been so great is because they’ve been able to get top-shelf directors to come in to helm their work. They’re able to get anyone from TV directors like Anthony and Joe Russo (CAPTAIN AMERICA: WINTER SOLDIER and CIVIL WAR, AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR) to critically-acclaimed film directors like Ryan Coogler (BLACK PANTHER). But they can’t get everyone, apparently.
Screen Rant sat down with DON’T’ BREATHE director Fede Alvarez and wondered if the horror-mvovie darling would be willing to make a big franchise movie like STAR WARS or a comic book movie. According to Alvarez, the opportunity already presented itself:
No. Look. A lot of those movies are cool and audiences are going and watching them. It’s just as a director it’s harder to have your vision in those, if you go and do a Marvel movie… At some point we were in conversations and… they already figured it out. They’ve figured out the style. They’ve figured out the way they shoot them. They’ve figured out the colors, the humor. What would I do? I enjoy a lot more freedom than that. I don’t know. Eventually I might. And it depends on probably the characters in the stories. But just something about my job as a director that I really enjoy is creating my own thing. It’s trying to do my own style when I shoot it and set the tone myself… EVIL DEAD was a challenge in that aspect.
Although his first words are "no", by the end of the quote his tone seems to change. At first he seemed so sure he would never do one, but by the end it becomes clear that he may do a larger-scale movie if the story and characters seem right. My guess is that the movie they offered him was probably DOCTOR STRANGE, given how they eventually went with Scott Derrickson, another horror director.
Who knows, maybe if Marvel ever hits a rough patch they will give directors like Alvarez (or even directors Patty Jenkins and Edgar Wright, who both left Marvel projects due to “creative differences”) another opportunity to handle one of their flicks with more creative freedom. But for now they seem to have all their money-spewing ducks in a row, and why mess with a winning formula?
Alvarez’s DON’T BREATHE is set for August 26 with Dylan Minnette, Jane Levy and Stephen Lang.