Victoria Alonso
Marilla Sicilia/Archivio Marilla Sicilia/Mondadori portfolio via Getty Images
The Oscar-nominated drama Argentina, 1985 was the focus of the sudden firing of longtime Marvel Studios executive Victoria Alonso last week, has learned.
Alonso was one of the eight producers of the international production distributed by Amazon. However, sources say she has broken her contract several times by doing so. After repeated warnings, the situation escalated in the week after the Oscars, eventually leading to her termination. It’s been a seismic shake at Marvel, where Alonso has been part of the Holy Trinity for years – along with Marvel Studios CEO Kevin Feige and co-president Louis D’Esposito – that has taken the Marvel Cinematic Universe to ever greater heights.
According to insiders, Alonso broke a 2018 agreement in which she broke the company’s standards of conduct, which said employees would not work for competing studios.
Sources say that Alonso neither asked for nor resigned permission to work on Argentina 1985, but instead made the film of his own volition. (However, an IndieWire article published about the film last month indicated that she had the permit.) When Disney learned of the project and the breach, her years of service and veteran status prompted the company to grant her a special permit on the condition that she would no longer work on the film. Nor should she promote it or publish it in any way. The situation of a top executive working on a film outside the company’s confines was deemed serious enough to involve the management audit team, and a new memo has been signed, according to an insider.
A representative for Alonso declined to comment. A Disney representative also declined to comment.
The film premiered at the Venice International Film Festival in September 2022 and soon the drama was on the price list. Alonso then found himself front and center in the circle of demonstrations and Q&A, panel discussions and interviews.
According to sources, she was reminded of her agreement and breach several times, but the performances went on. She even appeared on the Oscars arrivals carpet, not as a Marvel exec associated with that studio’s multi-nominated Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, but as a producer traveling with her film’s director, Santiago Mitre.
What also irked Disney executives was that while she was working on promoting her film, she was busier than ever in her Marvel visual effects area of responsibility as president of physical and post-production, visual effects, and animation production.
Over the past year or so, as Marvel has been putting out an unprecedented stream of series and films, the general impression has been that VFX artists have not been treated well by Marvel, which has been attributed to factors such as long work hours, razor-sharp deadlines, and the lack of a singular Vision.
Movies, including the February release Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, have come under fire for subpar visual effects while Alonso’s reputation has become increasingly polarizing.
“The only thing you can ask is a person to stay until 1am and work on VFX shots before things start to break down,” says a post-production source. Another post-production talent says they avoided working with Marvel because of Alonso’s reputation for being challenging.
Still, she had her supporters, including Eternals star Salma Hayek, who called her the “best Jefa ever” in December 2021.
In any case, things came to a head after the Oscars and Alonso was fired for good cause.
Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Alonso, 1985 was a personal story. Ricardo Darín stars as Julio César Strassera, the prosecutor who led the case against those behind Argentina’s military terror regime that led to the disappearance of 30,000 people. “I’ve written a lot of stories about superheroes,” Alonso told IndieWire in a story published last month. “And I’ve always wanted to tell a story about what happened in Argentina because I should have been one of those 30,000 people.”
Alonso’s shot came suddenly and shocked the city because of the muted nature. Some have speculated that Alonso was silenced for openly opposing Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law. “As long as I’m at Marvel Studios, I will fight for representation,” Alonso, who is gay, said at the time. Disney opposed the bill, leading to a clash with the state government and ultimately the loss of special tax status. A move that will likely cost the company millions.
But other sources say his voice has only raised Alonso’s profile within the company. She was asked to represent the company on the board of GLAAD, joined the company’s Pride 365 leadership team, and made a deal with the company’s publishing division to write a memoir.
In any case, the VFX industry will be watching the following closely. Marvel is one of the largest VFX clients due to the scale of its work – its tentpoles regularly have 2,000+ VFX shots, sometimes a whopping 3,000 per film.
It’s unclear who will take over Alonso in the meantime – at least some vendors are now working with VFX producer Jen Underdahl for the time being. Insiders acknowledge that anyone taking on their duties could face similar challenges as Alonso, who helped bring out the unprecedented 18 films, TV shows, and specials that Marvel’s released in 2021-22.
A VFX pro says, “Whatever criticism is leveled at her, she is not an island. Part of the problem is the aggressive release schedules.”
That aggressive schedule could already be seen in the rearview mirror, however, as returning CEO Bob Iger has indicated intentions to slow Marvel’s production.
—Carolyn Giardina and Aaron Couch contributed to this report.