After Victoria Alonso’s firing from Marvel last week, plenty of people are in an uproar and debating its causes. Most people point to her unauthorized work in the Argentine film Argentina, 1985, as a critical aspect of her termination.
According to some sources, Alonso allegedly broke a 2018 agreement with Disney forbidding her from working for rival companies. Instead, she neither asked for permission nor gave notice that she would be working with Amazon on the film. However, there was a conflicting report from IndieWire explaining that Disney had, in fact, given Alonso their blessing to pursue the project. Still, her contractual breach was met with a dispensation thanks to her veteran status from her work in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Disney warned Alonso that she would not be allowed to promote or continue further work on the film. With Argentina, 1985’s September 2022 premiere at the Venice International Film Festival, Alonso was placed at the forefront of the film’s promotions, from panels to interviews to representing the film at the Oscars, ignoring Disney’s demands to honor her agreement.
Since Alonso was busy promoting Argentina, 1985, she was too busy to supervise the bustling visual effects department. Over the past year, Marvel has pushed out many series and movies, causing VFX artists to suffer from long hours, skin-tight deadlines, and unfocused goals. With this mistreatment, Alonso became a polarizing figure due to her formidable reputation, pushing “a person to stay until 1 a.m. working on VFX shots for so long before things start to break.” At the same time, most people don’t push too much blame against Alonso since “she’s not an island. Part of the problem is the aggressive release schedules.”
Alonso’s sudden firing caught people off guard, leading them to speculate that her outspoken support of the LGBTQIA+ community upset Disney. She had previously spoken out against the Florida “Don’t Say Gay” bill that Governor DeSantis had signed in March 2022. She then spent 45 minutes speaking to then-Disney CEO Bob Chapek to persuade him to stand against the bill. Once Disney followed through on this, they lost their special tax status in Florida, costing them millions of dollars. Alonso’s attorney Patty Glaser claims that Disney is silencing her thanks to this dissidence and that “there is a lot more to this story, and Victoria will be telling it shortly—in one forum or another.”
Leave a Comment