Marvel Wants To Work With SELMA’s Ava DuVernay

You know that I'm a big fan of Ava DuVernay's Selma, and I think she's an incredibly promising director, so when The Wrap reports that Marvel wants to work with her, I get excited. Yeah, we definitely want promising filmmakers to make movies that reflect their personal visions... but we also want promising filmmakers to make great entertainments that can be profoundly culturally important. 

According to The Wrap they're talking to DuVernay about directing either Black Panther or Captain Marvel; while either film would benefit from DuVernay's exceptional storytelling skills and understanding of nuanced characters, I really want her to direct Black Panther. Let me tell you my devious reasoning for this: if we get her on Black Panther perhaps Marvel will feel the need to hire another female director for Captain Marvel. Imagine it: TWO female directors. That sort of thing is absolutely mind-boggling. 

One reason I find her a good fit for a potential Black Panther movie: I loved the way she handled the ensemble in Selma. We thought it was going to be a Martin Luther King Jr movie, but it turned out to be a movie about an entire movement of people. She was able to create - on a smaller budget - an incredible sense of place and time, and to weave many characters together while getting an all-time performance from her charismatic leading man. I want those skills set loose on the fictional nation of Wakanda - I want to have a filmmaker who creates a believable world, and populates it with a large cast anchored by the charismatic leading man Chadwick Boseman. Basically I want her to do Black Panther or The Inhumans. 

Here's hoping; I think DuVernay isn't just a good director, my interactions with her make me think she's a really good person, and I'd love to see her become the kind of marquee name that fans plug into fantasy movie line-ups - Michelle MacLaren and Katherine Bigelow really need the company.