Victoria Alonso was fired from the highest job – variety

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At this year’s Oscars, Victoria Alonso was stunned.

The Marvel Studios veteran, executive director and producer of the nominated film “Argentina, 1985,” was strutted down the red carpet, pausing in front of paparazzi hired to capture top executives on Hollywood’s big night. But something hit her.

“look at this! Two women!” said Alonso of the female photographers hired at the party (as in most corners of Hollywood, women outnumber men in the photoshoot line). Emotionally, Alonso insisted that the couple put down their cameras and pose for a photo with her in front of a giant Oscar statuette. When they all smiled, she said to them, “We’ve worked so hard to get here, and we’re not going anywhere.”

After eight days, she was fired as Marvel’s president of physical production, post-production, visual effects and animation, according to three people familiar with the matter. diverse. This change came as a surprise to many in show business and within Marvel’s vast comic book fanbase (a prominent online and in-person community at the many multiplexes where the studio releases its films). Its exclusion has raised many questions about the behind-the-scenes workings at the Precious Content Engine, and with them, another unfavorable news cycle as Disney CEO Bob Iger tries to stabilize its parent company amid economic turmoil.

Sources said that while the reason for Alonso’s termination is not clear, the decision was made by a consortium that includes Disney Entertainment co-president Alan Bergman, who all of Marvel Studios reports to. Alonso’s longtime boss and Marvel chief creative officer, Kevin Feige, were not involved in the process, another person familiar with the exit added. Feige, feeling mired in an impossible situation, ultimately did not intervene. Another insider added that Alonso was surprised.

A representative for Alonso declined to comment for this story. Marvel Studios had no comment.

Alonso joined Marvel Studios in 2006, three years before Disney acquired the label for $4 billion. For 17 years, she’s been a fixture under creative director Kevin Feige, standing in for Feige’s right-hand man and co-chair Louis D’Esposito. At the same time, she’s worked towards becoming a brand on her own — a rare LGBT person and woman of color in a visible leadership role, known for her fiery passion and candor about diversity and inclusion in Marvel’s storytelling.

She’s been feted by media watchers and the visual effects communities alike and is about to publish a memoir about her corporate rise, aptly titled “Possibility Is Your Superpower” (which is still due out at Disney for Hyperion Avenue writers).

Where, then, in all of the multiverse did this dramatic fracture occur?

Many sources familiar with Marvel have pointed to the tremendous pressure the unit has been under over the past few years to deliver compelling content not just to theaters, but in the form of new streaming shows aimed at augmenting Disney+. In 2021 and 2022, Marvel unloaded an unprecedented torrent of comic book adventures, releasing 17 titles — seven movies, eight streaming series and two TV specials — over the course of 23 months.

This rapid distribution schedule, a product of the pandemic and the need to constantly feed Disney+, wasn’t of Alonso’s making, and Marvel was far from the only studio tasked with delivering feature-level content for the newly launched streaming service. But it’s been Alonso’s job to get each of those titles through Marvel’s massive post-production process, and by the summer of 2022, cracks are starting to show in the company’s seemingly impregnable armour.

Starting with Reddit, followed by a series of stories Posted online, visual effects artists began to complain loudly about Marvel’s difficult post-production schedules. Complaints ranged from relentless overtime to chronic understaffing to an inability to avoid submitting substandard work due to ever-changing deadlines, but some singled out Alonso as a “kingmaker” who blacklisted artists who “in any way upset her.” “.