Worked For 64 Hours A Week: VFX Artist Blows The Whistle On Marvel’s Toxic Work Culture
With billions grossed over the box office, Marvel has become perhaps the most dominating production house in Hollywood
After single-handedly dominating Hollywood for more than a decade, cracks have begun to appear in Marvel’s seemingly infallible reputation. A recent report by Vulture details the toxic work conditions VFX artists had to put up with while working on a Marvel project.
The report details their experiences and describes it as Marvel perpetuating “crunch culture.” The anonymous VFX artist, who spoke to the publication, was quoted saying, “Maybe a month or two before a movie comes out, Marvel will have us change the entire third act. It has really tight turnaround times. So yeah, it’s just not a great situation all around.”
“Some of the problems I mentioned are universal to every show and every project. But you end up doing less overtime on other shows. You end up being able to push back more on the directors. When they say something like, ‘Hey, I want this,’ you can be like, ‘This doesn’t make sense.’ Not every client has the bullying power of Marvel,” they added.
With billions grossed over the box office, Marvel has become perhaps the most dominating production house in Hollywood. Reports allege that this has given it an overwhelming influence over the direction of industry practices, including long working hours.
Describing the conditions, the artist said, “When I worked on one movie, it was almost six months of overtime every day. I was working seven days a week, averaging 64 hours a week on a good week. Marvel genuinely works you really hard. I’ve had co-workers sit next to me, break down, and start crying. I’ve had people having anxiety attacks on the phone.”
In the last few years, Marvel movies have drawn criticism over the deteriorating VFX standards across its properties. Just recently, images from She-Hulk: Attorney at Law were revealed, and fans called it out for poorly done computer-generated faces and shoddy animations. In the past, Thor: Love and Thunder director Taika Waititi, has mocked his film’s CGI work.
According to reports, Marvel has been infamous for last-minute changes and sweeping edits. It has also drawn criticism for hiring indie directors, who have little experience working with VFX, and seldom struggle with work-in-progress shots, which leads to major edits.
Some artists have also complained that most of the time they do not work with a director of photography and have to develop their own shot for an action sequence, which results in an inconsistent visual style. This problem might also grow larger, considering that Marvel has just announced over half a dozen movies and TV projects scheduled to release in the coming years.
Unbelievable. VFX artists are coming out and talking about labor malpractice from the biggest media conglomerate in the world, and comic book movie dorks will still be like, "Well, it's not *JUST* Marvel! You shouldn't talk about *JUST* them!" pic.twitter.com/VkC0swGGNy
— Jakob Sanchez (@Pun_Trash) July 27, 2022
THIS is why i get so mad at people who blame vfx workers for ~shoddy~ work. this is an area of the industry that needs aggressive unionization, to force marvel into spend the money it is making in droves to go toward better working conditions and appropriate levels of staffing https://t.co/5d5oFH3GZt pic.twitter.com/GpeGLH7sJ6
— the source known as "sucks eat cfootball" (@nowyousieme) July 26, 2022
The recent scandals about VFX team work conditions at Marvel really confort me in my desicion to a total boycott.
— Guillaume Babey (@WilliamBabey) July 27, 2022
It really isn’t only Marvel properties that yield grueling work conditions. VFX is ripe with unaware clientele that over demand and under-accommodate. https://t.co/BT9kOybvJE
— Spencer Wyatt (@SpennyEcks) July 28, 2022
And yes, before anyone gets on MY case too, screw Marvel Studios treatment of VFX artists. They need to slow the heck down with the release slates for all these projects and give people more time and better conditions to work on their films and shows right the heck now.
— Tiger Lover 16 (@TigerLover161) July 28, 2022
Reading these conditions that Marvel FX workers have to work under and it's no surprise they're ready to level the Atlanta forest to make more square footage of movie sweatshops
— Burn Down the Supreme Court (@Vicky_ACAB) July 27, 2022
VFX work conditions are abysmal 😭 wtf marvel https://t.co/ehdvNnray5
— Ace-Hulk: Sorceror at Law (@StrangeAcee) July 26, 2022
[Marvel squeezes entire industry until it's forced to work in terrible conditions without enough labor to do the job fairly or well] this is the fault of the artists
— Marc Normandin (@Marc_Normandin) July 27, 2022
As exciting as a lot of those Marvel Studios announcements are, I sure hope VFX artists are able to unionize in the near future because the amount of release dates and deadlines that dropped are quite staggering, and it'd be unfair for them to work under poor conditions.
— Noah V (@Noah_Villaverde) July 24, 2022
(Image credits: Disney, Marvel)