Filmmaker Jon Watts, who directed all three of the Tom Holland-led MCU “Spider-Man” films, recently attended a storytelling masterclass at the Mediterrane Film Festival in Malta this week.
During his presentation, he touched upon a variety of topics, with one in particular drawing some attention – his exit from Marvel Studios’ “The Fantastic Four: First Steps”.
Watts was originally attached to direct the project as his next film after “Spider-Man: No Way Home” but then opted out – instead opting to helm last year’s much smaller scale “Wolfs” starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt.
In his first comments about his departure, he reveals it was basically burnout from having done three “Spider-Man” films in a row. ‘No Way Home’ in particular had a grueling pandemic shoot and complex postproduction process:
“The emotional strain of having to go through all of those COVID protocols while also trying to make something creative while also trying to make sure that your cast and crew were all safe = literally, people could’ve died if you did things wrong – that and the postproduction process was very difficult.
When you’re doing [visual effects work], there’s a whole international component to it where you’re using vendors from all over the world, and the supply chain had been interrupted because of COVID. It was really hard to get effects done in a traditional way.”
Watts committed to the new F4 before tackling ‘No Way Home’, but it wasn’t until the time came to actually focus on it that he realised he couldn’t do it:
“[I realised] I am out of gas. The COVID layer on top of making a giant movie layer, I knew I didn’t have what it would’ve taken to make that movie great. I was just out of steam, so I just needed to take some time to recover. Everyone at Marvel totally understood. They had been through it with me as well, so they knew how hard and draining that experience has been; in the end, very satisfying, but at some point, if you can’t do it at the level that you feel like you need to for it to be great, then it’s better to not do it.”
Instead, “WandaVision” showrunner Matt Shakman took the helm and Watts says he can’t wait to see it, even as he admits it’s “going to be totally surreal experience for me to go and watch that movie.”
Watts also executive produced last year’s “Skeleton Crew” series, arguably the “Star Wars” live-action series to have the smallest impact on the zeitgeist so far. Asked if there’s any more “Star Wars’ in his future, he says: “I would love to do more Star Wars and I can’t say anything more.”
Source: THR
