Veteran Marvel Studios executive Victoria Alonso has exited the studio. According to the Hollywood Reporter, multiple sources confirmed that she parted ways with the studio on Friday.
Alonso had been with the company for 17 years, since the first Iron Man and has Executive Producer credit on over 40 Marvel projects including movies such as The Avengers, Iron Man 3, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and TV shows such as Loki, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, Ms. Marvel, and Moon Knight. Her first Marvel credits are as co-producer for Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger.
For Iron Man, she was visual effects producer and worked her way up the ranks to become Marvel Studios’ head of visual effects by the time Dr. Strange was in production. In 2015, Alonso was promoted to executive VP of production, and in 2021 she was promoted to president of physical, post production, VFX and animation at Marvel Studios.
The reasons for Alonso’s exit are unclear, however as president of physical, post production, VFX and animation, her exit could have something to do with the recent criticisms by visual effects professionals.
In July, 2022, Dhruv Govil, Former CG Artist who worked on Spider-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy, and many more, shared an article criticizing Marvel specifically about how VFX artists are treated by the studio:
The article alleges that Marvel has unworkable deadlines and creates immense pressure, leading to stress and unsatisfactory final products. Several VFX artists have taken to Reddit to complain about Marvel’s unreasonable demands.
Most recently, the special effects in last month’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania came under fire, and even though it is the highest-grossing Ant-Man movie domestic, it has fallen significantly short internationally, and apparently someone has to answer for that.
Three VFX artists who worked on Quantumania anonymously spoke to Vulture, explaining that budget issues are at the root of the visual problems, with certain MCU movies being prioritized over others. In the article, the artists claimed that critical resources were diverted away to Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. As head of visual effects, Alonso would be the one who was overseeing these decisions.
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Alonso worked with James Cameron and Tim Burton before arriving at Marvel. Last year, Buenos Aires-born Alonso also produced the Oscar-nominated international feature Argentina, 1985. She was named one of People en Español magazine’s Most Influential Hispanic Women in 2019 and 2020 and has been featured on The Hollywood Reporter’s Women in Entertainment Power 100 list multiple times.
Despite her sudden departure from Marvel on Friday, according to her IMDb, Alonso is still credited as a producer on the upcoming Marvel film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and the Disney+ shows Secret Invasion, and Ironheart.