Growing up as a super fan of Marvel Comics, one might have dreamed of working for the giant studio and bringing to life all their favorite characters and stories. Many people behind the successful MCU movies are avid fans of the comics, but for Marvel producer Nate Moore, this is a huge red flag.
Avid comic fans would always appreciate anything that is faithful to the source material; the general audience would not bother so much as long as it’s entertaining. But sometimes, writers have to deviate and generate new ideas to make the stories more compelling, relevant, and fresh.
Marvel Producer Nate Moore Opts Against MCU Writers Who Are Comic Fans
Nate Moore, producer of Marvel films from Captain America: The Winter Soldier to Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, said that being a huge comics nerd is not going to get you the job. In the podcast, The Town with Matthew Belloni, Moore tells fans all the behind-the-scenes of Marvel’s hiring process, and that includes being strict on employing die-hard fans:
“For me, one thing I think is interesting [about Marvel’s process], and specifically for writers, I would say, a lot of times we’re pitched writers who love Marvel. And to me, that’s always a red flag. Because I go, ‘Oh, I don’t want you to already have a preexisting idea of what it is because you grew up with Issue 15, and that’s what you want to recreate…’ I want somebody who’s hard on the material, who goes, ‘What is this? I think there’s a movie here, but maybe we should be looking at it in this way.’”
It may seem a daunting move to deviate from the source material because the comics serve as the foundation of the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe. But over the years, these giant leaps of faith have become advantageous to the success of Marvel Studios. It also helps to notice that a single change in a character’s detail or story arc never lost Marvel a chunk of its fan base.
Deviations From The Source Material Made Marvel Successful
It is no secret that many aspects of Marvel movies have never been so accurate. Nate Moore also noted:
“The best example of that for me was Markus and McFeely, who weren’t comic guys coming up, but were like, ‘Wait, Captain America, this seems a bit weird. What if we kinda looked at it in this way?’ And they weren’t married to anything, nothing was, you know, there was nothing sacrosanct. And I think that’s important to be able to go, ‘Look, the source material is great, and I love it, and comics work great in the medium they were built in, but that’s not a direct, one-to-one translation to the best version of the movie.’”
This might be a major deal-breaker for some and a heartbreaking truth for fans. Many of these changes and modern approaches influenced the flow of their comics counterparts. Take, for example, Nick Fury. He was originally white in the books, but Samuel L. Jackson’s portrayal was so influential and compelling that Marvel used him as the basis for the succeeding issues.
This should not discourage aspiring writers to give up on their dreams. Think of it as a challenge to see through and beyond what is already laid out on the table. Clearly, Moore wants to say that comics are a source of inspiration, not a manual to be followed strictly.
