In a recent interview, Secret Invasion director Ali Selim seems unconcerned with the negative reviews. As I’m sure you know, Secret Invasion‘s finale was last Wednesday and the RT score was an awful 13%. I reviewed the finale myself and gave it a C-, certainly the lowest grade I had given across the season. Speaking with Variety about all things Secret Invasion, director Selim discussed those negative reviews and it seem’s he’s really not bothered by it.
“Oh, I don’t read reviews. With all due respect. For me, I view all the storytelling work I do as a dialogue with an audience. When the show is finished and put up on the screen, that’s my half of the dialogue. And the audience then starts their half of the response to it. I think that’s valuable, but I don’t know how to answer the question.”
“I don’t feel bad about mixed reviews. If you had unanimously good reviews, every movie would gross $10 billion, trillion dollars, right? [Projects] resonate with different people at different times for different reasons, and Marvel has a very devoted — even rabid — fan base who have expectations and when their expectations aren’t fulfilled, they move in the other direction; they give it a thumbs down.”
“I don’t know — is it our job to fulfill their expectations? Or to tell the story that we’re telling? So, it’s a tricky thing. I would love it if everybody loved it, but I also don’t have that expectation myself, so I feel great about the response to it.”
RELATED: Secret Invasion Finale Rated At 13% On RT – No One Liked The Ending
I think it’s your job to tell the story you want to tell. However, if that story doesn’t connect with audiences, you have to accept it. I mean there’s thousands of unsuccessful writers who refused to bend their stories. However, it is worth noting that Selim was not the Secret Invasion writer. Actually I liked the writing in the earlier episodes, it just fell away into a completely different show by the last two episodes. I’m not sure we can even blame Selim for the finale as he says the Super Skrull idea was all Kevin Feige and this was for most fans a disappointing ending. In fact it was an ending previous Marvel show She-Hulk had already made fun of.
“Well, simply put, it comes from Kevin Feige, who says, “It’s all fair game.” That’s best expressed in the moment when Gravik takes the vial from Nick Fury, puts it in the computer where it is analyzed, and we see all the pure superpowers ever. That’s like the moment where we’re like, “OK, this is going to be something.””
Selim then talks about the storyboard process and then the practicalities of filming the action sequence before saying.
“So, the decisions are Kevin Feige, then story and then just practicality.”
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Ultimately, Selim probably got paid to do his job and walks away happy. Most of the decisions were taken either by Marvel boss Kevin Feige or the different head writers who were developing the series. Oh, that’s another thing, remember the head writer changed after filming had begun and a new head writer had set up 4 months of reshoots to retool the script as they had now rewritten.
I guess Selim was just a hired hand in this one and moves on with a paycheck and a smile. It’s Kevin Feige and his decisions which have been off base since Marvel began Phase 4.
What do you think of this news as Secret Invasion director Ali Selim seems unconcerned with the negative reviews? Thoughts below as always.
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