Victoria Alonso’s surprise firing from Disney and Marvel Studios last week was tied in part to a breach of agreement involving her work as a producer on the Oscar-nominated international feature “Argentina, 1985,” IndieWire has learned.
The former Marvel executive’s involvement on “Argentina, 1985,” which was distributed by Amazon Studios and on which she was one of eight producers, amounted to a violation of company terms she signed in 2018 stating that Disney employees would not work with competing studios, insiders told IndieWire. And as THR first reported, Alonso was given numerous warnings, including after Alonso appeared at the Oscars, not on behalf of Disney and Marvel’s “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” but alongside the director of “Argentina, 1985,” Santiago Mitre.
An insider told IndieWire that Alonso did not seek permission from Disney to work on “Argentina, 1985,” though IndieWire recently reported that “producer Axel Kuschevatzky persuaded Alonso to get permission from Disney and Marvel to help him to produce.” The source claimed that Alonso never received permission, and that her continuing participation in other appearances and press interviews on behalf of “Argentina, 1985” fractured her relationship with the studio.
Disney had no comment. A rep for Alonso could not immediately be reached.
Alonso, who has been with the studio since 2006 and co-produced the first “Iron Man,” was elevated to her role in 2021 and became a fixture alongside Marvel chief Kevin Feige and co-president Louis D’Esposito. But her promotion came at a time when Marvel was in the midst of a massive production swell, with the studio ramping up production from just three movies per year up through 2019 and Phase 3 of the MCU to producing seven films and eight Disney+ series since then.
As a result, Marvel’s VFX and post-production work — with Alonso serving as president of physical and postproduction, visual effects and animation production — came under increased scrutiny and criticism. VFX sources who recently spoke to IndieWire said they became embarrassed by the quality of the work they produced under the Marvel banner, and one source additionally said that Alonso may have spread herself too thin promoting her other film at a time when the studio was facing criticism.
“Argentina, 1985” premiered in September at the Venice International Film Festival and was nominated for Best International Feature at this year’s Oscars.
Alonso, who is gay, had increased her profile among the public in part because of her advocacy for Marvel’s representation efforts, most recently amid the backlash that followed Disney’s handling of Florida’s controversial “Don’t Say Gay” bill in 2022. “As long as I am at Marvel Studios, I will fight for representation,” she said last year.
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