8 People Who Hated Working For Marvel Studios
Working with superheroes isn't always fun and games.
Right now, over at Marvel Studios, business is booming and production is more finely-tuned than ever. Since Iron Man debuted seven years ago, Marvel's movie outfit has been steadily reeling in the megabucks, honing its methods and building up a pool of talent, its confidence growing to the point where it now has a rigorous plan accounting for output all the way up to 2028.
Which isn't to say everything has been rosy. In realising the MCU and bringing those films to the screen, it's mostly been business as usual for the filmmakers and actors working for Marvel, while for the likes of Robert Downey Jr and James Gunn, respectively going from outcast and unknown to highest paid Hollywood actor and star director thanks to Marvel, life has never been better.
Despite the big happy family image that's been conjured up over at Marvel, though, there have been disputes, sackings and creative disagreements that have soured the relationship between the studio and some of its people. Probably more chaos goes on behind-the-scenes than fans realise, but a handful of stars and directors have elected to speak out and let their true feelings be known.
It's likely that most of the stars and various crew fit into Marvel's plan fairly comfortably (the same names keep returning for a reason). Here, though, are eight people who came to hate working with Marvel Studios.
8. Mickey Rourke - Iron Man 2
For irascible old Mickey Rourke, it's par for the course to be completely honest about absolutely everything, even if that everything is the reason for your latest Hollywood rejection and subsequent career slump. Here's a particularly enlightening soundbite, about his 2011 film Passion Play: "Terrible. Another terrible movie."
Rourke reserved his most stinging judgement for Marvel Studios, however, and the producers that decided to take a punt on Rourke for Iron Man 2 after he made his comeback with The Wrestler. In Iron Man 2, Rourke plays villain Ivan Vanko/Whiplash, and it seems a lot of the preparation Rourke did for the film annoyingly came, in his eyes at least, to nothing.
"The people are Marvel just wanted a one-dimensional bad guy, so most of the performance ended up on the floor", Rourke later said in an interview with CraveOnline; he also insinuated that he was "working for the wrong studio", that director Jon Favreau "doesn't have any balls", and that Marvel movies are simply "mindless". Needless to say, Rourke and Marvel shall not be working together again.