MCU Producer Says Writers Who Love Marvel Are A Red Flag For Him

Marvel Studios executive Nate Moore shockingly says that he looks warily at writers who are fans of Marvel comics. Read details inside

By Ishita Chatterjee
November 18,2022
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Marvel Studios has been on a roll for a decade. It has built up its pantheon of heroes who are now recognized and loved worldwide. Kevin Feige’s vision is still continuing as the Marvel Cinematic Universe continues to expand into its Phase 5. One would expect that Feige and co would prefer writers for their projects who love Marvel. But according to Marvel Studios executive Nate Moore, it’s quite the opposite. Read more below:

MCU Producer Wary Of Writers Who Are Fans Of Marvel 

Nate Moore
Nate Moore

Sitting down for an interview with the podcast called, The Town with Matthew Belloni, MCU producer Nate Moore explained that he rejects diehard Marvel comic fans as writers. He said:

“For me, one thing I think is interesting [about Marvel’s process], and specifically for writers, I would say, a lot of times we’re pitched writers who love Marvel. And to me, that’s always a red flag. Because I go, ‘Oh, I don’t want you to already have a preexisting idea of what it is, because you grew up with Issue 15 and that’s what you want to recreate…’ I want somebody who’s hard on the material, who goes, ‘What is this? I think there’s a movie here, but maybe we should be looking at it in this way.'”

Moore further explains:

“And I think, again, the best example of that for me was Markus and McFeely, who weren’t comic guys coming up, but were like, ‘Wait, Captain America, this seems a bit weird. What if we kinda looked at it in this way?’ And they weren’t married to anything, nothing was, you know, there was nothing sacrosanct.”

He thinks it’s important for writers to look at the source material objectively:

“And I think that’s important to be able to go, ‘Look, the source material is great, and I love it, and comics work great in the medium they were built in, but that’s not a direct, one-to-one translation to the best version of the movie.'”

Is Nate Moore Right To Reject Hardcore Comics Fans? 

Thor
Thor

At a glance, it might seem weird that Moore is disregarding fans of the comics their cinematic universe is built on. But since he has produced movies like Captain America: The Winter Soldier and more recently, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, so he definitely knows what he’s talking about.

And he’s right.

Marvel movies aren’t a 1:1 copy of the comics. A lot of the characters have been reinvented for the big screen and don’t resemble their comic counterparts much except for maybe the design. A prominent example of this is Thor. He started out as a fish-out-of-the-water who was a quite serious character. But later on Taika Waititi re-created the character and made him more comedic.

And this is quite necessary since as Moore said, something that works in the comics medium won’t necessarily work for the visual one. So there is a need to get writers who don’t hold the Marvel comics as a Bible. And are willing to look at it critically and from different angles.

What do you think about Nate Moore’s comments? Let us know.