Ms. Marvel’s directors wanted their show to be ‘Into the Spider-Verse in live action’
polygon.comMarvel Cinematic Universe fans tuning in to Ms. Marvel for the first time may be reminded of the recent Oscar-nominated Netflix movie The Mitchells vs. the Machines. Like Ms. Marvel, that film is about an imaginative teenager who’s at odds with her family members, particularly over her habit of living in a world of her own invention. Like The Mitchells vs. the Machines protagonist Katie, Ms. Marvel star Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) obsessively doodles her fantasies, which show up both in her sketchbook and all over the screen, illustrating the colorful way she sees the world.
But series producers Bilall Fallah and Adil El Arbi, who directed the show’s pilot and the last of its six episodes, say they had older inspirations in mind when they were planning what the show would look and feel like.
“American high school movies and series were a big inspiration for us,” Fallah tells Polygon. He says that because he and El Arbi are from Belgium, movies like Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club “are, like, totally different than our world. But seeing that [version of] American high schools, that was really a great opportunity — like the John Hughes movies and Saved by the Bell.”
“And Parker Lewis Can’t Lose. And Spike Lee!” El Arbi cuts in.
“Spike Lee! Do the Right Thing!” Fallah echoes. “New York is a character in Spike Lee movies. We wanted to have New Jersey to be really a character.”
In interviews, the two men speak loudly and enthusiastically, completing each other’s sentences or sometimes shouting the same thing in unison. They’ve worked together since film school, first directing Belgian crime movies (2015’s Black and 2018’s Gangsta), then working on American action movies, including 2020’s Bad Boys For Life and the
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