Continuing their quest to find brilliant new artists to helm their cinematic franchises, Marvel has recently approached Oscar-nominated director Ava DuVernay (‘Selma’) to direct one of their “diverse” (in my source’s words) superhero movies, which means she’s being courted to direct either ‘Black Panther‘ or ‘Captain Marvel.’ DuVernay apparently was interested in the prospect of directing one of the super-hero films, apparently leaning more toward ‘Black Panther’ than ‘Captain Marvel,’ though either choice would be just fine with me. With the loss of Joss Whedon from the MCU, fresh voices are needed to bring the world into Phase 3, and having a director with a vision and voice, trying to say something while also producing a great super-hero movie will only help enhance the MCU, and continue to separate it from the lifeless profiles in darkness that are the upcoming DC movies.

From the studio side, Marvel has been intent on hiring an African-American director for ‘Black Panther’ and a female director for ‘Captain Marvel’ for some time now, which was confirmed when they approached Angelina Jolie to direct ‘Captain Marvel’ a few weeks back. I suppose the idea is to make the films as diverse as possible, including those behind the camera, to help alleviate the studio’s (admittedly small since they’ve been introducing more diverse heroes such as the Scarlett Witch, the Falcon and giving more screentime to War Machine and Black Widow) PR problem of mainly having white male superheroes.

Of course, the only downside is that DuVernay would be signing on for a studio exec heavy franchise, meaning she would not have the freedom she has had in the past with films such as ‘Selma,’ ‘Middle of Nowhere’ and ‘I Will Follow,’ but if she is truly passionate about whichever Marvel character she chooses to bring to life, than I suppose the trade-off would not matter that much to her.

Source: Collider