Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law’s VFX problems were largely due to pre-production issues and shifting release dates.
Marvel Studios‘ She-Hulk: Attorney at Law and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania were both criticized for their VFX by both critics and fans upon their respective releases. Since then, Marvel VFX workers have come forward about poor work conditions, 14-hour days with no overtime, and more, leading them to unanimously vote to unionize in September 2023.
A new report from Variety states that Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’s VFX issues were largely due to a last-minute release date shift.
Originally, The Marvels was supposed to come out in February 2023 while Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was scheduled to release in July 2023. The two films switched places after Ant-Man 3 was “deemed further along” than The Marvels, which then bumped up Quantumania’s post-production schedule by approximately four and a half months. The Marvels, meanwhile, was again delayed until November 10, 2023.
“Marvel films are known for coming down to the wire, given [Kevin] Feige’s ability ‘to foam the runway and land a plane that way,’ says one executive familiar with how the company operates,” Variety’s article states. “But this level of unfinished was unprecedented and would be noted in scathing reviews when the tentpole with the $200 million budget opened 11 days after the premiere.”
What happened with She-Hulk: Attorney at Law’s VFX?
According to Variety, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law originally didn’t include a flashback scene that saw Tatiana Maslany’s Jennifer Walters transform into She-Hulk until the eighth episode. After reviewing the footage, Marvel decided they needed this scene in the pilot episode and then told the VFX team to make the change with little time to spare.
“The so-called bad VFX we see was because of half-baked scripts,” one source involved with the production said.” “That is not Victoria [Alonso, the former president of physical, post-production, visual effects, and animation for Marvel Studios]. That is Kevin [Feige]. And even above Kevin. Those issues should be addressed in preproduction. The timeline is not allowing the Marvel executives to sit with the material.”
