Last week, JVL paid Marvel Studios a genuine-if-slightly-backhanded compliment, saying the films in "Phase One" (i.e., the films starring the Avengers that culminated in The Avengers) had been good but not so good that they won't be topped in "Phase Two" (i.e., the films starring the Avengers that have yet to be released, such as this weekend's Iron Man 3, that will culminate in Avengers 2 in a few years). As he put it, there's "room—lots of it—for improvement." He went on to wonder about the method to the studio's (thus-far-successful) madness:
What’s interesting to me is that Marvel doesn’t seem to have a systematic approach to assembling their film projects. There doesn’t seem to be a "Marvel Method" for the film universe. Look at the directors they’ve chosen: Whedon, Branagh, Johnston, Favreau. You can try to find some common theme with them, but it’s pretty hard. Now look at the Phase 2 directors: James Gunn. Alan Taylor. The Russo Bros. You might remember them from such classics as You, Me, & Dupree and Super. And lots (and lots) of TV work. The only stud in the bunch is Shane Black–who is awesome. But again, it’s interesting to think about the kind of managerial process which hands pieces of big, expensive, interrelated movies to Kenneth Branagh, Alan Taylor, and Shane Black. Maybe there’s a coherent worldview to that, but I can’t intuit it.
In fact, looking at the writing-directing teams from Phase 1 and now from Phase 2, I only see two likely conclusions. Either (1) Marvel has decided that it doesn’t care about a writer-director’s pedigree, they’re just hiring talent that has figured out a great way to tell their particular story. Or (2) Marvel has decided that writing-directing talent is secondary to the power of the characters and pre-existing story pieces which they’ve already generated through the comics. Why else move down from (mostly) proven feature-film directors to marginal film and TV directors for Phase 2?
I don't think this is really an either/or proposition, though. At least, it wasn't for Phase One. Marvel picked directors who were perfectly suited, temperamentally and experience-wise, for the projects at hand. Think of it this way:
- Iron Man/Iron Man 2: Jon Favreau is basically a happy-go-lucky sort who understands having a darker side is fine but a darker whole doesn't work. He's a good fit for Tony Stark. It helped that he had some experience with fantasy-style, big budget pictures.
- Thor: Kenneth Branagh doing a film filled with people speaking ye olde (or, at least, affected) English while traipsing around in medieval-style outfits and playing with swords? That's basically just Marvel's take on Shakespeare.
- Captain America: Look, real talk time: Captain America is a boring character. But he's vitally important to the Avengers. So we need a competent-but-not-necessarily great director to introduce him to audiences without messing up. Who you gonna call? Joe Johnston! (The Wolfman, The Rocketeer, Jumanji, Jurassic Park III ... you get the idea.)
- The Avengers: Marvel Exec: "We need to tie all this crap together with just the right nerd touch." Joss Whedon: "You rang?"
So, on a project-by-project basis, it all makes sense. But even if it didn't make sense, Marvel is hands-on enough with the material to make sure it made sense. Remember, one of the reasons Iron Man 2 is such a hot mess—and one of the reason Favs isn't back, I'm comfortable guessing—is that Marvel's higher ups decided to sacrifice the coherence of that story in order to introduce a couple of different gags that would tie together Iron Man with Thor and Captain America. Here's Cinemablend:
If you’ve seen Iron Man 2 then you noticed that it wasn’t quite the movie we’d all hoped for. Actually it wasn’t very good. Part of the problem was the movie seemed wrapped around an odd, Avengers-focused, subplot which never really fit into the story. Jon Favreau may not have liked it any more than you or I do.
Our source says Iron Man 2 wasn’t the movie Jon Favreau wanted to make. Marvel interfered heavily with his work on the movie and turned the project into an infomercial for The Avengers. Favreau felt the movie was rushed into production (and if you followed the development process you know it was) and they pushed him into making it without a fully realized script. Iron Man 2 wasn’t the movie he wanted to make and because of that, if there’s an Iron Man 3, there’s every reason to think he won’t be back. Marvel doesn’t want to pay him and Favreau may not want to deal with more Marvel interference.
So, Marvel believes the characters and the stories can sell themselves so long as Marvel keeps an eye on things. And if Marvel believes that, then there's no reason for them not t0 hand the movies off to less-than-well-known directors: They're cheaper, they're easier to push around, and Marvel can ensure that the coherence of the universe remains intact while moving the brand along.