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VFX artists are taking a stand against Marvel and many refuse to ever work with the entertainment giant again. They talk about impossible deadlines and enormous pressure leading to stress and unsatisfactory end results. A lot of people are saying never get involved with Marvel again as the studio has “worst management” there.
These allegations were made on the r/VFX subreddit, where artists from the industry shared their negative experiences with the company. Almost no one on the subreddit has a good word to say about an employer, with many saying that money and star power are not worth putting up with poor working conditions.
In a thread titled “I’m frankly tired of working on the Marvel show,” Reddit user Independent-Ad419 expressed his dissatisfaction with the studio.
Perhaps Marvel has the worst production and visual effects management methodology. They will never be able to fix the look of the show until more than half of the time allotted for the show is over. The artists working on the Marvel show definitely don’t get paid as much as they did.
Others in the answers agree. “On Thor they ask for a full mini-episode 2 or 3 weeks before the deadline,” says samvfx2015.
Mickeym00m00 says:
I ask you not to work on films and TV shows [Marvel]. Unfortunately, they become our biggest customer. They expect a buffet of options so they can change their mind three more times.
Those who could not avoid working with Marvel confirm that things have not improved in recent years. “I’ve been at Marvel for almost three years in a row. Welcome to the seventh circle of hell.” Another user shared that his time at Marvel was “a black hole of sleep deprivation and poor nutrition.”
Another thread from three months ago contains even more killer tales of what it’s like to work with Marvel. These accusations spread when another visual effects artist was frustrated at losing the opportunity to work with Marvel – his industry peers assured him it wasn’t a big loss.
RANDVR writes:
I’m working on my third Marvel project in a row and literally just woke up at 5:30 AM on a Saturday feeling stressed out. I don’t want to do this anymore. It’s 6am now and I’m making a video to apply to somewhere that has non-Marvel projects because I can’t do that anymore.
Mickeym00m00 shared a particularly shocking message about his work with the studio:
Marvel has seen grown men hitting walls and throwing monitors out of stress. I’ve broken down a couple of times and seen the strain it can put on marriages. But hey, $$ was fantastic. To hell with Marvel as a client, the credit name is worth nothing.
Raistlinuk agrees:
It took me over six months to recover from the overwork with WandaVision. It’s not worth it. Not when there are better designs out there that look just as good.
Given that some of these projects are recent, it is unlikely that there have been any dramatic changes in the past few months. It remains to be seen if Marvel will respond to this criticism as it becomes widespread online.