VFX artists speak out about poor working conditions at Marvel

For most viewers, Marvel Studios is synonymous with high-quality tentpole movies…but for the visual effects artists who create the worlds and creatures of Marvel’s myriad shows and films, the studio apparently has a far more troubling reputation.

After a Reddit user started a thread titled “Marvel Remorse!” where they lamented that they passed on a position that would have allowed them to work on Marvel projects, various VFX artists chimed in to reassure them that weren’t missing anything. Horror story after horror story came out, including tales of VFX workers being underpaid, extremely overworked, and forced to meet unrealistic deadlines that took a hard toll on their personal lives.

“I am on my third Marvel project in a row and literally just woke up 5.30 am on a Saturday with stress going ‘I don’t want to do this anymore’,” wrote user RANDVR. “I don’t give a shit if the Marvel fanboys eat it up and make Marvel billions (we don’t see any of that anyway). All you get from Marvel movies is stress and nothing else. It’s 6am on a Saturday now and I am making a reel to apply someplace that has projects other than Marvel because I can’t do this anymore.”

They went on to say that working on Marvel projects is “soul crushingly boring, badly managed and stressful,” a sentiment that was echoed by many others.

“It took me over 6 months to recover from Wandavision’s crunch. It’s not worth it. Not when there’s better run projects that look just as good out there,” agreed raistlinuk.

VFX artists are sick of being underpaid and overworked for Marvel

In another thread, reddit user Independent-Ad419 opened up about how sick they were of having to work on Marvel shows. “Marvel has probably the worst methodology of production and VFX management out there. They can never fix the look for the show before more than half the allocated time for the show is over.”

"The artists working on Marvel shows are definitely not paid equivalent to the amount of work they put in. The charm for working on a Marvel movie is way over rated now and I would rather be happy working on a TV series after decades and decades of this."

Those kinds of comments are rampant, and after The Gamer released an article about it, even more VFX artists chimed in. “Working on Marvel shows is what pushed me to leave the VFX industry,” wrote Dhruv Govil, a former VFX supervisor who worked on the Spider-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy films. “They’re a horrible client, and I’ve seen way too many colleagues break down after being overworked, while Marvel tightens the purse strings.”

"So just because a lot of folks have mentioned it, this has been the case since the earliest days of the MCU. It didn’t start recently, and it’s not because of Chapek. The issue is Marvel is too big, and can demand whatever they want. It’s a toxic relationship."

The fact that these complaints seem to be so widespread isn’t a good look for Marvel, which makes some of the highest grossing films of all time. Just the other day, Thor: Love and Thunder director Taika Waititi and actor Tessa Thompson were in a video for the latest Marvel movie that poked fun at some of the film’s visual effects…which seems in poor taste in light of these stories.

Considering that the conveyor belt of MCU content has been more ferocious than ever lately, we can only imagine what that looks like on the back end for the people creating its countless VFX shots.

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h/t Den of Geek