Movies | The Marvels Director Wasn’t Invited to Cast and Crew Screening

Nia DaCosta, the filmmaker behind the 2021 Candyman movie and this year’s The Marvels, wasn’t invited to the cast and crew screening of her own Marvel movie.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, DaCosta only learned about the cast and crew screening for The Marvels during the night of its airing — which coincided with her 34th birthday party. Crewmembers who were invited to DaCosta’s birthday party informed the filmmaker of the event but by that time it was already too late to attend. Mary Livanos, the executive producer on The Marvels, substituted for DaCosta at the Westwood’s Fox Village Theater on Nov. 8.

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“It would be quite disrespectful and upsetting to suggest Nia has anything other than adoration for her creative team,” a representative for DaCosta told THR. It’s also worth mentioning that DaCosta attended a similar but toned-down event in Las Vegas the night before the cast and crew screening. Additionally, the film’s own cast like Brie Larson (Captain Marvel) wasn’t able to attend the event because they had to wait until the SAG-AFTRA strike was officially over at 12:01 a.m. to resume film promotions.

The Marvels Comes Up Short at the Box Office

At this point, the box office disappointment of The Marvels is far from a secret. The $200 million-budget film experienced a 78-80% drop-off in its second weekend at the box office; an unfortunate record for Marvel Studios. This comes after an underwhelming opening and mixed-to-bad reviews of the Captain Marvel sequel. Although Marvel fans have the right to be disappointed in The Marvels, it hasn’t been lost on the fandom that there seems to be a suspicious push to blame the film’s poor box office performance on its indie filmmaker rather than on Marvel/Disney. It was only recently that an insider tried to blame DaCosta for “abandoning” The Marvels during its postproduction phase, despite the director sacrificing other obligations in favor of the film.

The Marvels Hasn’t Killed the MCU, It Proves the Actors’ Worth

The THR’s framing of DaCosta being unable to attend the cast-and-crew screening of The Marvels isn’t going over well on social media, as many believe the filmmaker is being unfairly thrown under the bus. Below are a few examples from the social media platform X:

The Marvels is currently in theaters worldwide following its recent debut on the big screen.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter