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MarvelVision News Update: Victoria Alonso, Thunderbolts And More

Alex Zalben043 mins
marvel news agatha coven of chaos victoria alonso daredevil born again florence pugh thunderbolts

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Victoria Alonso, one of the key players since the beginning of the MCU, is out at Marvel. On this week’s Marvel news update, we discuss the ramifications of what this means for the future of Marvel, and try to untangle what is actually going on behind the scenes. Plus, Florence Pugh comments on Thunderbolts, Kingpin is spotted with hair, and more Marvel news!

Episode Rundown:

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Episode Transcript

Alexander Zalben
Welcome to MarvelVision, a podcast about Marvel, the MCU and right now a bunch of news updates. I’m Alex.

Justin Tyler
Justin. Also news updates.

Pete LePage
I’m Pete.

Alexander Zalben
Pete also last name news updates. On this episode, we are going to be talking about some big stories that are happening in the world of Marvel. Well, at least one big story happening in the world of Marvel and this is a huge one. And frankly, I don’t think people realize exactly how huge or big of a deal this is.

Victoria Alonso Exits Marvel Studios

Yeah, that Victoria Alonso has exited Marvel Studios. This is a story that has been trucking along I imagine by the time we get this podcast up, frankly the story will have gone through a bunch more iterations and more stuff will come out but as we’re talking about it right now, this broke through the Hollywood Reporter. Victoria Alonso, if you don’t know is basically one of the original three people of the MCU she goes back to Iron Man the original movie, along with Louis D’Esposito. Yeah, Victoria Alonso, Louis D’Esposito and Kevin Feige are basically just like main three producers that shepherded the whole MCU and everybody thinks about it. As Kevin Feige is like, I’m this lone guy that kept it going. It’s certainly like He’s the face of it.

Justin Tyler
but there are like the A-team he’s the face.

Alexander Zalben
Exactly. And Victoria Alonso is the Mr. T. I never watched that show. Is that accurate?

Pete LePage
Oh my god. Yeah, it’s the show.

Alexander Zalben
I don’t know they were in a van, I don’t like vans, they’re creepy

Pete LePage
What! That was one of the coolest vans of all time.

Justin Tyler
like so you’re gonna you’re gonna hear a noise in your living room one night and walk out there and to be peed with a with a team of DVDs and being like, buckle up, motherfucker. We’re riding on this for the next eight hours.

Alexander Zalben
So Victoria Alonso was one of those essentially original three she grew over the years to become I believe, the official title in the past couple of years was VP of VFX, and physical production. So basically, the way that it worked out is while Kevin Feige was you know, talking to the artists and running the creative and doing all that sort of stuff, Louis D’Esposito was the guy who was dealing with the money people he was talking to the investors, he was talking to the advertisers and things like that. And Victoria Alonso was the person who’s basically like, post production and pre production is all her so she’s the person, particularly how Marvel works. And a lot of this has come out of the past couple of days more specifically, that they’re like the second they say, Hey, we’re gonna make Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. She’s like, great, what does this look like? We’re going to start designing sets. We’re going to start deciding props. We’re going to add ematic out the sequences, all this stuff, and she’s the person who’s leading that charge now, and there’s a lot of information we need to put out there. So we’re going to try to put it out upfront, but as you’re probably all aware, over the past couple of months, there’s been a lot of things that have come out very negatively about VFX the press where the VFX artists have talked about how they’ve been insanely overworked Marvel gives them changes the last second doesn’t seem to what they want, and fans have been responding pretty negatively as well, particularly into the last couple of movies and TV shows in terms of how they look. So ostensibly. And there’s a guy named Chris Lee, who’s been doing a lot of reporting about this over at Vulture who came out immediately after it was announced she was exiting there was like, yeah, the VFX people hate her. Like they hate her. They think she’s a tyrant. She is doesn’t know she’s the person who is behind all of this. And then we’ve heard things a little. Well, this is the thing and this is the thing that makes it tough to parse is on the opposite end of the spectrum, we’ve heard a lot of other things about people they’re like, well, first of all, she’s amazing, particularly if she has been a huge champion of women in the industry, to the point that they just released I think, a week or two ago, this whole documentary series about women of Marvel that she was prominently featured in so she’s been very big on that and because she I think it was her project sort of the whole time. Yeah, exactly. And she is also she’s a queer woman of color is the other thing and openly queer. So like, That’s a rarity in this industry, particularly at that level. So there’s a lot of other people who would push back and be like, no, these VFX artists are just men who don’t like a woman telling them what to do. So there’s a lot of behind the scenes scuttlebutt going on and a lot of back and forth and a lot of reporting about it. But the big deal here is she has gone and I think I’ve certainly heard from people that it was not like, Well, I’m leaving Marvel Studios, it was she was fired, and she was fired for ridiculous reasons. Like they kind of made up an excuse to fire her behind the scenes, essentially, to bake her into a fall guy, you know, be like what happens? Yes, these movies have been, have been doing well, particularly quantum mania. Didn’t do to be generous, not nearly what they need it to be doing. And so she somebody needed to take the blame, and she was the one that took the blame. So go ahead, Justin.

Justin Tyler
Well, I was gonna say like, when I read the story and saw that she was sort of the high end post producer for for the MCU. I was like, okay, that’s been a problem point. For a long time. A pain point is the corporate terminology. So I do think I think that may be why but also, it’s strange to me like you don’t need a fall guy and fall person that high. You could find someone lower to be like, you are in charge of Phase Five post or like, anything or just the Ant-Man post, whatever, like, whatever needed to go like if you need to, like sacrifice someone it could be someone lower than her but the other thing I thought is from a VFX point of view, VFX are changing so much and how they’re made and done and the pace at which they’re made. I think maybe if she is sort of an old guard when it comes to that maybe they want you want to bring in some new energy that can have a different sense of that part of the industry from from a top level point of view. A B I also think if the way that the DC announcements have come out since James Gunn took over are like we’re gonna start to put creative first writers first and if her whole thing is like, hey, oh, you’re gonna do Ant-Man, I’ll start designing the set pieces. That’s not how they want to move forward anymore. It’s we want to like actually write a script first and then start doing that. So maybe she just is part of an old way of doing things.

Alexander Zalben
That definitely seems like even though it’s a very negative thing, a positive way of looking at it. A couple of other things that I threw out there just to respond to what you’re saying. Part of the reason that I think they targeted her is if you fire the guy who was in charge of Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania VFX. That’s not that doesn’t seem to be the scale of the problem, right? Like people complained about She-Hulk. They complained about Ant-Man, they complained about people from Ant-Man being pulled over to Black Panther Wakanda Forever, all of these different things that are going on that who ultimately just the buck stops with that’s the head of VFX right? Yeah. So particularly if you’re looking for somebody prominent there who you could point the finger at, that’s a much clearer thing, particularly to the investors behind the scenes who are like, Yo, you’re losing us money on these movies and TV shows. They’re not driving the same try that type of traffic to Disney plus, or anything like that. Somebody’s gotta go. So having somebody that high up, that’s a way of saying, Oh, look, we got rid of the person who was the problem, however, and this is the other side of it even beyond whatever Victoria Alonso did or didn’t do. It doesn’t solve the problem.

Justin Tyler
Right? Exactly. And we’re purely speculating. It could be any number of reasons that we don’t know. But I agree, like firing someone is a fine solution to talk about, but it doesn’t actually fix your problem. It doesn’t actually move everything forward. It’s just like a blame a slash punishment thing.

Alexander Zalben
Well, and if you think about it from a logistical perspective, and almost makes it worse, right, because even if she was not doing a great job at it, you down don’t have the person who is in charge of that thing. You have 13 million projects that are in development at the current time.

Justin Tyler
It’s like when we fire the fourth host Dave, and

Alexander Zalben
he was in charge of everything. I don’t even– Are we recording this? He Dave was always in charge of recording and-

Justin Tyler
he pressed record.

Alexander Zalben
Pete what’s your take on this?

Pete LePage
Well, first off, I don’t fucking know. I just think it’s it sucks that someone who has an amazing track record like she has it has been killing it since day one got the shaft. So that billows and it seems like they made it like piled a bunch of things on her and pointed out you know, it just sucks when the business side of things can ruin some great creativity and also someone who is very good at their job or whatever is going on. So

Justin Tyler
what if you found out that she was some sort of monster that like didn’t bag and board her comics or something?

Pete LePage
Well yeah, then she just got to go. But yeah, it’s rough. I have no idea what’s going on behind closed doors over there. What’s really going on, but the fact that she’s been there since Iron Man makes me nervous because that was the real start of this new Marvel phase that we see. So

Alexander Zalben
well. I think that gets into the bigger thing that is 100% pure speculation isn’t based on anything necessarily, but I think her leaving should really set up alarm bells about what is going on at Marvel. We’ve been talking about this a bit anyway, in terms of like we just said the movies and TV shows haven’t been hitting it exactly the same way. Certainly a lot of people are feeling overwhelmed about the amount of content through Phase four. And we’re like, Oh, that’s okay. I can go watch something else. Or alternatively, there are people who feel like the movies aren’t as strong they just did. You’ve talked a lot about what is the story of this, where’s this going? So for the first time, we felt like there were these cracks in Marvel’s armor for the first time in a decade, and to have Victoria Alonso one of this trio out in such a shocking way. That’s not a crack that’s like an arm of the arbour falling off and no longer being there. And it makes me legitimately very worried about Marvel’s future like I they’re not going to stop making movies. They’re not going to stop making TV shows. But this if anything, potentially and Pete’s gonna really react to be saying this but potentially could be the beginning of the end for Marvel. Legitimately.

Justin Tyler
What a statement what a strong statement.

Alexander Zalben
It is I’m saying like it is the strongest indication that we could be heading in that direction that we’ve had so far.

Justin Tyler
Perhaps but I also think Marvel succeeded in an truly unprecedented way for the last decade. And there have been some missteps but I think you can write that ship and I think guardians three will be a big step in that direction. And as long as they sort of follow that thread, I think they’ll be in good shape. Let’s not forget that Disney. As the corporate parents, they’re also merciless when it comes to like, like goals. And if you’re not meeting your mark, yeah, we’re gonna take we’re gonna cut an arm off and maybe that arm was this human being.

Alexander Zalben
Yeah. Well, it sucks and I don’t think it’s the end of it. This is the other part I won’t get too. much into it for various reasons. But I think this is just the beginning of this story. There’s a little bit more to the reason they used to get rid of her from Marvel that may lead to other things happening. Law things potentially so serious. Yeah. So there’s gonna be a lot more we’re gonna hear about this, and it may get worse before it gets better. But why don’t we move on to some more fun news items.

Florence Pugh Comments on Thunderbolts

This is the fluffiest possible news item, but Florence Pugh is touring around with her new movie that she’s doing with Zach Braff. And of course got asked about Thunderbolts, this was over on Gamesradar. And she said, I don’t know much about what we’re shooting or what the storyline is. But I’m very lucky to be in this position. That family is very supportive one, whatever they give me, I’ll ask the hell out of it.

Justin Tyler
Love the vibe don’t love the first half of that.

Alexander Zalben
That it it’s I mean not to tie back to this first thing-

Pete LePage
The hard you you don’t know what they’re you don’t I mean, they they don’t explain it to you. It’s gotta be hard as an actor to kind of be like, what are we doing? Like what’s going on? You know,

Justin Tyler
it’s like the idea that she’s like, oh, yeah, if you just point to me and say act angry at this tennis ball. I will. It’s like, oh, that was the literal problem with Ant-Man.

Alexander Zalben
Well, but that’s also we didn’t talk about this last week on the podcast, but there was this quote that was getting passed around from Anthony Mackie, which I didn’t write down so I’m gonna paraphrase here and I think he was joking a little bit for a fact. But he was talking about how Marvel gets him to read scripts that he was like, Yeah, I don’t know. They call me in. I gotta fly over to this computer with a password and there’s an intern they’re eating Cheetos, and he’s like, come on, Hurry up, and I’m like, yo, I’m dyslexic. And he’s like, I don’t care. So

Pete LePage
sounds like a great atmosphere Marvel’s creating there.

Alexander Zalben
This is the problem. If you think about like this Florence Pugh quote, again, she was asked on a carpet so she’s giving like a quick quippy answer, so I’m not gonna read too much into it. But there is the potential for like, they put up that picture of Thunderbolts and she was like, Oh, um, am I in that? Oh, yeah. So not great. Not great.

Justin Tyler
Yeah. But also like, we don’t know how far along in the process it may be that that she hasn’t really done much or like what we know. I mean, maybe we do know more about well, how far along the process where I guess I don’t so it may be that she’s just not in it. Yeah.

Daredevil: Born Again May Feature Flashbacks To Kingpin With Hair

Alexander Zalben
Yeah. Here is another couple of quick hits. Daredevil Born Again is currently filming here in New York and a little bit of a spoiler. I don’t really think so. But seems like there are some scenes that are gonna be flashbacks to the 90s including what looks like Kingpin as a kid with hair. Pete’s strong opinions about this sort of thing. What do you think?

Pete LePage
Well, that’s, that would be crazy. And I don’t know if I want to see the king pin with air. You don’t I mean, like, I like my king being just the way he is, but could be interesting. You guys. I need you to be out there on the streets, seeing where they’re shooting. What’s going on, though. So you got to get out there, man. start checking out some of the legal you know, get to Hell’s Kitchen. See where they’re filming man.

Justin Tyler
I’m on the street poking. Anytime I see someone with a camera. I knock them over and said hey, this is a Kingpin with hair here

Pete LePage
Marvel what’s going on?

Alexander Zalben
I do love I’m sure you guys have not been paying attention to this but I do love whenever something from Daredevil Born Again pops up in my feed. Because people are going nuts. They’re like, Oh my god. Here it is the first look at Charlie Cox. And I’m like he’s wearing red glasses in a suit. We saw that for three seasons. What are you guys doing here?

Justin Tyler
They’re shooting the cool stuff inside away from people. But Kingpin with hair like I’m down for a Princepin. Let’s see it.

Alexander Zalben
Absolutely. Last thing I’ll say about this. There was also a set photo that came out of Charlie Cox walking by a church and of the church. There was a date on there that was 2000 So people were like, oh my god this takes place during the Blip that’s why Karen and Foggy aren’t gonna be there because they’re blipped away. I think it was just that was just on the church. There was just the church and

Pete LePage
yeah, they haven’t even said sign since 2000.

Alexander Zalben
100% come to New York fellas, you’ll find out.

Justin Tyler
They don’t do a lot of re etching of ancient stones here for movie sets. That’s something they do in post, but maybe a great way to cover fog is just be like he was the one who got blipped permanently.

Alexander Zalben
Foggy blipped for our sins. Yeah. There we go.

Agatha: Coven of Chaos Adds Composer Christophe Beck

To other TV things Agatha Coven of Chaos has added Christophe Beck. Christophe Beck previously composed the music for the three Ant-Man movies and also co-scored Hawkeye.

Justin Tyler
Oh, cool. Sounds good Christmas music maybe maybe it’s all Christmas music.

Alexander Zalben
Yeah. musical numbers.

Justin Tyler
Yeah. I mean, this show that that series The Agatha Coven of Chaos could easily have many musical numbers. That show is a real question mark about what’s going on.

Pete LePage
I’m very excited for that show. That could be a really, really well done show.

Alexander Zalben
Absolutely. And this is clearly a composer that knows how to work in the Marvel Universe. I don’t think the Ant-Man score necessarily jumped out at me or the Hawkeye score.

Justin Tyler
Favorite part of the Ant-Man movies is score.

Alexander Zalben
The score. That’s what the first one was all about was the score. The second one leaned a little less into the crime aspect. Yeah.

Justin Tyler
Nice, good. Yeah, that’s,

Alexander Zalben
but yeah, it’s fine. If you want. It’ll be good. Get Marc Shaiman. I think it was MarkcShaiman who did the musical numbers so get them back? Oh, no, it was the Lopezs did the music. And of course, yeah, please get them to work on the show.

Megan McDonnell and Peter Cameron Join Vision Quest As Writers, Under Jac Schaeffer as Head Writer and EP

And last but not least, Megan McDonnell and Peter Cameron have joined VisionQuest as writers under Jac Schaeffer, his head writer and EP both of them wrote on WandaVision, so we’re Agatha Coven of Chaos is doing whatever it’s doing and seems the most direct sequel to WandaVision. This seems to be taking the WandaVision team and moving them on to a story of white vision, which is very exciting to me.

Justin Tyler
well and let me say while it may seem that Agatha is the sequel, this feels like the spiritual sequel that this will have the what we loved about WandaVision and taken into a new direction.

Alexander Zalben
Well trying to get what do you want to see out of VisionQuest because we know White Vision left after the whole Ship of Theseus thing at the end of WandaVision? There’s a whole Vision Quest storyline of the West Coast Avengers comic books. I don’t think they’re gonna directly adapt that in any way because that doesn’t make any sense. But what do you want to see here? What do you want to see in the storyline in the show potentially?

Justin Tyler
I would like to see even though it’s a little bit duplicating the WandaVision stuff. I would like to see some of the Tom King Vision Series here where vision creates a family and tries to live a suburban life. That I love that comic series and I think there’s a lot of just great adaptability there to bring that to TV. So that and really what I want to see is visions version. I think these two series should almost like be bookends to each other. I want to see visions version of the quest of finding out who he is without his partner or like what his life is basically.

Alexander Zalben
Pete What about you what do you want to see on a VisionQuest?

Pete LePage
Good show.

Alexander Zalben
Great. Thanks, Pete. I agree with that. I think you know, to jump off of what you were saying, Justin, what I would love to see out of this. WandaVision, at least critically is still the strongest show that Disney has put out and I think at least part of that is how they executed it creatively on an episodic basis. So if they can really think about that, like what is the creative execution? I don’t need to see them do sitcom episodes except with vision or anything like that. But what is the thing that makes this a show? Why are you doing this show? And beyond? This is the question they should be asking for all of these things. But beyond like, it’s a franchise extension. Are we like these characters? What can they do? What is the reason for having a show about Vision and how are we doing it as a TV show? Given the gap, Jac Schaeffer, given that you have these two writers coming on and potentially more of the staff, that makes me very excited for the potential of something that can feel really really special?

Justin Tyler
Agreed What if his quest is to coach up a struggling British football team and try to make them win the league you know?

Alexander Zalben
Oh, Viz Lasso?

Justin Tyler
Viz Lasso

Alexander Zalben
Oh man, Pete, would you be more into it then?

Pete LePage
Yes.

Alexander Zalben
Great.

Justin Tyler
Pete, only giving hard short answers.

Alexander Zalben
Oh my goodness, you got thrown by Kingpin with hair and you haven’t come back since. Folks, thank you so much for listening. Thank you for tuning in. We appreciate it. You can support this podcast and all the podcasts we do at patreon.com/comic book club. Also read a live show every Tuesday night at 7pm to Crowdcast and YouTube, come hang out we would love to chat with you about Marvel, Apple, Spotify, Stitcher or the app of your choice to subscribe, listen and follow the show at Marvel vision pod on twitter instagram and facebook comic book club live.com for this podcast and many more, until next time, stay marvelous.

Justin Tyler
hashtag Princepin

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