If you’ve seen any of the recent movies coming out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you might have noticed something’s up — or, rather, down. That something is the quality of the visual effects: sometimes overdone, other times bordering on amateur. Don’t blame the artists, though; as Daniel Chin points out in this Ringer piece, Marvel has been squeezing its workforce for some time. And now the CGI chickens are coming home to roost.
These issues of extreme workloads and a culture of crunch are reminiscent of those that developers have long faced in the video game industry, where a labor movement is currently underway to improve work conditions. And between Waititi’s comments, the article by The Gamer, and Govil’s tweets, Marvel’s VFX issue is starting to become too big for the studio to ignore. According to Govil, at least, this isn’t a new issue. But it’s one that has likely become even more prominent in recent years as the studio’s success has grown and as its increased output on both the big and small screens has made its appetite for footage more acute.
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