A few years back, “Evil Dead” director Fede Alvarez was rumored to helm “Doctor Strange,” but beyond internet chatter, it was never really confirmed. The gig went to Scott Derrickson, and Alvarez moved on, helming the upcoming “Don’t Breathe,” but it turns out that he did meet with Marvel. And while he doesn’t share which project was on the table, he explains why he wasn’t interested in the job — or really in doing any big tentpole movie.
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“A lot of those movies are cool and audiences are going and watching them. It’s just as a director it’s harder to have your vision in those, if you go and do a Marvel movie… At some point we were in conversations and… they already figured it out. They’ve figured out the style. They’ve figured out the way they shoot them. They’ve figured out the colors, the humor. What would I do? I enjoy a lot more freedom than that. I don’t know,” he told ScreenRant. “Eventually I might . And it depends on probably the characters in the stories. But just something about my job as a director that I really enjoy is creating my own thing.”
Alvarez acknowledges that “Evil Dead” was a “challenge” in terms of putting his stamp on it, but overall, it’s easy to see where he’s coming from. Marvel is indeed a machine, where the director is executing a vision that has a lot of moving parts, and has to serve a particular function. And it’s likely why we’ve seen filmmakers in the past like Edgar Wright (who exited “Ant-Man“), Joss Whedon (who openly shared his frustrations about “Avengers: Age Of Ultron“) and Alan Taylor (who had post-production battles with the studio on “Thor: The Dark World“) bump up against the system.
So, perhaps Alvarez realizes this and is saving himself getting a headache he doesn’t really need, and you can’t really fault him for that. “Don’t Breathe” opens on August 26th.