Well you can
now stop wondering if Ava DuVernay will be directing Marvel’s film version of
Black Panther. The official answer is that she will not be, and that comes straight
from Ms. DuVernay herself.
In an interview
for Essence published yesterday (HERE), she revealed that that she has passed on the project, because she and Marvel had different creative viewpoints on how to approach the
project.
"I
think I’ll just say we had different ideas about what the story would be.
Marvel has a certain way of doing things, and I think they’re fantastic and a
lot of people love what they do. I loved that they reached out to me," Ms DuVernay said.
And she added that: "I
loved meeting Chadwick [Boseman, who will play the lead] and the writers and all
the Marvel execs… [but] … in the end, it comes down to story, and we just didn’t
see eye to eye. Better for me to realize that now than cite creative
differences later."
But she also
revealed some other disappointing news – that that pilot she recently directed
for CBS, "For Justice," which centered on a female FBI agent working in the
Criminal Section of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, was not
picked up by the network as a series. She speculates that the subject matter might
have been too hot to take on by CBS.
As she said, “We turned it in the week of the Baltimore
uprising, and we had an uprising in our piece when we filmed it… I think they
thought it was a little close to real life. But I had an absolute ball making it.”
Perhaps I’m
reading too much into it here, but it sounds as if she’s more disappointed with "For
Justice" than Black Panther. Honestly, I would be too. But after these setbacks, she’ll definitely bounce back.
In the meantime, who do you think will now direct Black Panther? If you ask me (and you aren’t) I would suggest either Ernest Dickerson or Seith Mann, who has a long list
of credits as a TV director on shows such
as "The Walking Dead," "Hell on Wheels" and "Homeland."
But then
again when I hear the words "Black Panther" I immediately think of Bobby Seale
and Huey Newton. Those are the black panthers I know, so what do I know about who should be the director.
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