Director who turned down Black Widow thinks the sound in Marvel movies is “ugly,” “terrible”

Black Widow, the first Marvel movie to feature Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) at its center, came out in 2021, at the height of pandemic-related fears of movie theaters, and generally seemed to go over with a “meh.”

Black Widow was directed by Australian director Cate Shortland, but she wasn’t the only person Marvel talked to about the job. They also spoke to Lucrecia Martel, the Argentinian filmmaker behind movies like La ciénaga and Zama. Martel is a respected filmmaker, but little-known outside the arthouse circuit, and she was shocked Marvel was considering her to direct a movie. “I never thought that would be possible,” she told The Film Stage.

Martel doesn’t detail exactly why she turned down the offer to direct Black Widow, but she seems to have some major problems with Marvel movies in general, which probably didn’t help. “It turns out some of the Marvel films are available on planes so I’ve seen a few. I find the sound in them is absolutely in very poor taste, the visual effects, and the sound of the effects.”

"It’s the selection of the sounds that they’re connecting to the effects, which is actually very ugly. And the way the music is used is actually horrible."

Has anyone been bothered by the sound effects in Marvel movies?

You know, I can’t really say I’ve ever paid any particular attention to the sound effects or ever the music in Marvel movies, or the way they work together; they’re just kinda there. Which I guess is good, because they’ve never bothered me to the point of distraction, but clearly Martel is hearing something I’m not.

So might Martel lend her expertise to the MCU sometime in the future? “I would have loved to make a film with them but I would have had to provide something that I would like to see in that world,” she said. Something tells me her ideas might go a bit far for Marvel, but who knows?

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