After working on The Witcher (he made headlines for saying the creative team hated Andrzej Sapkowski's books), Beau DeMayo looked set to play a big role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
After initially working on Moon Knight, he was tapped to take charge of X-Men '97 as Head Writer and later came on board the Blade movie for a rewrite. However, the scribe parted ways with Marvel Studios on the project and was fired from the animated revival earlier this year.
Things got increasingly messy from there, with claims of sexual misconduct on DeMayo's part and possible racism and homophobia from Disney/Marvel Studios. Now, he's filed a lawsuit seeking to invalidate the non-disparagement provision in his separation agreement.
In a 30-minute video posted to his OnlyFans account (via Variety), DeMayo broke his silence on Blade, alleging Marvel executives joked in front of him that they'd hired "a young Wesley Snipes" to write the movie.
He responded to that yesterday by stating, "One of the reasons I wanted to do this video is so that you can see that Wesley Snipes and I look nothing alike." DeMayo added that "the last straw" for him was when he arrived at Blade's production office to be told "someone needed to crack the whip around here."
We're not 100% sure there are racist connotations to the phrase and a high-profile 2020 legal case in the UK saw it deemed not racist due to the fact it typically refers to horses (on this side of the pond, at least).
In September 2022, DeMayo alleges that he shared concerns about prejudicial conditions on Blade with Marvel Studios and "in return, I was removed from the project in the middle of moving to Atlanta for production, and then had my role on Season 2 of 'X Men '97' aggressively marginalized."
He claims to have "the receipts and eyewitnesses" to back up these comments, though what he's hoping to achieve isn't clear. While DeMayo continues to say he's innocent of the sexual misconduct allegations made against him, requesting fans to subscribe to an adult website where he posts the kinds of photos he supposedly sent to co-workers has somewhat damaged his credibility.
"The rumors being spread around me online are lies, and they are offensive, but more concerning is that they’re a smear campaign designed to discredit my credibility in order to cover up the egregious prejudicial misconduct stretching from select crew members on X-Men '97, all the way all the way to the top at Marvel Studios," DeMayo told Deadline yesterday.
Saying "these allegations of egregious misconduct are false," he added that Marvel Studios fosters a "toxic environment" and "near criminal working conditions" and "turns individuals against one another, [stoking] paranoia to ensure compliance."
Stay tuned for updates on this developing story as we have them.