Ava DuVernay Explains Why She Almost Signed Onto Marvel's BLACK PANTHER But Passed
Selma director Ava DuVernay talks more here about passing on the opportunity to direct Marvel Studios' long-awaited standalone movie about the future King of Wakanda, Black Panther, and also why she was initially interested in the 2018 project! Check it out after the jump!
“It was really an enlightened day in terms of the quality of journalism,” DuVernay said of reports that she had officially signed on for Black Panther. As for why talks with Marvel fell through, she says: “For me, it was a process of trying to figure out, are these people I want to go to bed with? Because it’s really a marriage, and for this, it'd be three years. It’d be three years of not doing other things that're important to me. It was a question of, is this important enough for me to do?”
Ava DuVernay then explained why she even considered directing this particular blockbuster movie which would be Marvel's first movie to solely explore a black superhero. “At one point, the answer was yes, because I thought there was value in putting that kind of imagery and culture in a worldwide, huge way that they do in a certain way: flying, exciting action, fun, all those things, and yet still be focused on a black man as a hero — that would be pretty revolutionary,” she said. “These films go everywhere from Shanghai to Uganda, and nothing that I probably will make will reach that many people, so I found value in that. That’s how the conversations continued, because that’s what I was interested in. But everyone’s interested in different things.”
“What my name is on means something to me — these are my children,” she said. “This is my art. This is what will live on after I’m gone. So it’s important to me that that be true to who I was in this moment. If there’s too much compromise, it really wasn’t going to be an Ava DuVernay film.” After comparing the opportunity of directing Black Panther to directing an episode of the hit ABC series Scandal — “Scandal is Shonda [Rhimes]' world, and I was there to serve her vision, in her world; a fabulous world!” — Ava DuVernay said she thinks the Chadwick Boseman-led movie “should be good when it comes out” and that she'll “be there, watching.” What do you think?
With Disney's D23 Expo starting August 14 and Marvel Studios guaranteed to have a big presence, expect a Black Panther director to be announced, among other things. Anyhow, the movie stars Chadwick Boseman (T'Challa) with Ernie Hudson (T'Chaka) on board, and is set to open July 6, 2018.