Marvel Studios Promotes Executive Who Believes The X-Men Name Is “Outdated”
John F. Trent
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The Walt Disney Company and Marvel Studios promoted Victoria Alonso to be the new President of Physical, Post Production, VFX and Animation.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – JUNE 29: Executive Producer and Executive VP of Production Marvel Studios Victoria Alonso attends the Black Widow World Premiere Fan Event at Dolby Theatre on June 29, 2021 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Disney)
Deadline reports, “Alonso will oversee the divisions across the studio’s slate of films and series and continue to report to Marvel Studios co-president Louis D’Esposito.”
Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige commented, “Victoria has been an incredible partner and part of our team since the very first Iron Man.”
“She is one of the most dynamic, candid and accessible executives in the industry and we’re thrilled that she’ll continue to be by our side in this elevated role as we lead Marvel Studios into the future,” he added.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – AUGUST 16: (L-R) Executive Producer and Executive VP of Production Marvel Studios Victoria Alonso, Director Destin Daniel Cretton, and Producer, President of Marvel Studios and Chief Creative Officer of Marvel Kevin Feige attend the “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” World Premiere at El Capitan Theatre on August 16, 2021 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney)
Alonso provided her own statement as well, “When Louis first suggested I come to work with the team on Iron Man, I never could have imagined the adventure ahead, and as far as I’m concerned, it has only just begun!”
She went on to promise more singing in Marvel Cinematic Universe films and TV shows, “We have an absolutely incredible group of people who are bringing their many talents to the exciting slate of films and series we have on the horizon, and I’m especially thrilled about ramping up our studio’s animation efforts, which is a personal passion of mine. Look forward to more singing!”
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – AUGUST 16: (L-R) Director Destin Daniel Cretton, Executive Producer and Executive VP of Production Marvel Studios Victoria Alonso, and Chloé Zhao attend the “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” World Premiere at El Capitan Theatre on August 16, 2021 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Disney )
Alonso has been with Marvel since the end of 2005 when she joined as Executive Vice President of visual effects and post production. She would also be a co-producer on Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger.
In 2011, she became an executive producer on The Avengers and held that title on every single subsequent Marvel Studios release.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – JUNE 29: (L-R) Producer, President of Marvel Studios and Chief Creative Officer of Marvel Kevin Feige, EVP of Production at Marvel Studios Victoria Alonso, Co-Producer Brian Chapek, and Executive Producer Brad Winderbaum attend the Black Widow World Premiere Fan Event at Dolby Theatre on June 29, 2021 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney)
Related: Marvel Producer Victoria Alonso Believes The Name X-Men Is “Outdated”
Alonso revealed her opinions about the X-Men back in June 2019. Speaking to Nuke the Fridge, she claimed the team’s name was outdated.
She explained, “I don’t know where the future is going. It’s funny that people call it the X-Men, there’s a lot of female superheroes in that X-Men group, so I think it’s outdated.”
“I don’t know where it’s going to go. We’ll see. They just now have joined. They have a movie [Dark Phoenix] coming out soon, which under that banner is their last film. So, we’ll see what time will tell,” she added.
Source: Uncanny X-Men #1
Alonso has also declared that she wants the Marvel Cinematic Universe to be “diverse and inclusive.”
In a Reddit AMA in June 2019, she stated, “I can tell you we are actively working on making our universe as diverse and inclusive as we can. Be patient with us. We have a lot coming in the future.”
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA – JULY 20: (L-R) Kumail Nanjiani, Brian Tyree Henry, Salma Hayek, Richard Madden, Lia McHugh, Angelina Jolie, Don Lee and Lauren Ridloff of Marvel Studios’ ‘The Eternals’ at the San Diego Comic-Con International 2019 Marvel Studios Panel in Hall H on July 20, 2019 in San Diego, California. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney)
More recently in June 2021 she claimed that the studio was leaving money on the table by not representing.
She appeared at the Annecy International Film Festival to promote Marvel’s What If…? show. As reported by Deadline, during a Women in Animation panel she claimed diversity, inclusion, and gender parity ““all go hand-in-hand with showing the world as it is… There’s about 6,000 characters in the Marvel library that we have access to, so if this goes right, we will be telling these stories for many, many, many, many, many generations to come.”
“And the importance of laying the ground for what’s to come is that in those stories there’s many different characters that you can actually voice,” she added.
Source: All-New X-Men #40
She would go on to address a question she claims she’s asked, “Aren’t you tired every time your movie comes it’s number one in the world?”
She answered her own question saying, “The reason we have that success consistently is because our audience is global. You cannot have a global audience and not somehow start to represent it… For us, it was really, really, really important to have that.”
Source: Uncanny X-Men #147
“For the longest of time, we heard a woman-led film will never open. I say, ‘Please check, Captain Marvel made a lot of money.’ Then they always told us that Black Panther was never going to open and that nobody wanted a completely Black cast, and that made $1.3B,” she continued.
Alonso elaborated, “For the longest of time, we heard a woman-led film will never open. I say, ‘Please check, Captain Marvel made a lot of money.’ Then they always told us that Black Panther was never going to open and that nobody wanted a completely Black cast, and that made $1.3B.”
Source: Marvel Super-Heroes #11
She then provided some numbers about Marvel’s audience, “I think 51% of our audience is female, 28% of our audience is Hispanic. If we don’t represent the people that watch what we make, eventually they’ll go elsewhere because somebody else will figure it out.”
Alonso concluded, “We can only tell stories if we succeed and actually have money to make them. So the idea being, ‘If it makes money, why not make it?’ To me it seemed like a very simple equation, but it took a lot of time, a lot of talking.”
Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) in Marvel Studios’ SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS. Photo by Jasin Boland. ©Marvel Studios 2021. All Rights Reserved.
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