‘Moonlight’ Director Barry Jenkins on If He Was Offered a Marvel Movie

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has courted its fair share of beloved indie film directors, but it sounds like Moonlight director Barry Jenkins has yet to be amongst them.

In a recent interview with Variety, Jenkins was asked about the recent trend of indie directors going on to direct tentpole franchise movies. While the director hinted that he has gotten offers, nothing has come from Marvel Studios.

“I don’t think Marvel watches Moonlight and goes, ‘Let’s do that!’” Jenkins explained. “I wasn’t offered big Marvel movies or anything like that, but I was offered: What do you want to do? It was presented to me in a very clear way; you can do more or less whatever you want. And what I wanted to do was finish the cycle of Moonlight and [If Beale Street Could Talk].”

Jenkins’ reasoning does make a lot of sense, even as you do consider the number of “indie” directors making their way into the comic book realm. Just in the past year, Marvel has seen massive hits from Thor: Ragnarok‘s Taika Waititi and Black Panther‘s Ryan Coogler, while DC Films is building up their roster with up-and-coming directors like Shazam‘s David F. Sandberg and Birds of Prey‘s Cathy Yan.

While it’s unclear if a Marvel-esque franchise movie would be something that Jenkins would want to do, it seems like there’s an ever-growing desire on Marvel’s part to tell more diverse and creator-oriented stories.

“The success of Black Panther, like a lot of things with the history of Marvel Studios, has just emboldened us to just continue doing that and to continue heading forward with that.” Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige explained in a recent interview. “That’s what I loved about genre films, science fiction films, is you’re telling these very serious, very real stories — the X-Men are a great example of that — any great science fiction stories where you’re dealing with things like alien races or wars but you’re really talking about contemporary society.”

“You’re really talking about people, which is what I love. It gives you something fun and entertaining to watch on screen, because that’s what I wanna see when I go to the movies, but you’re getting a message… [Black Panther director] Ryan Coogler used to say something great when people would ask him, ‘Will non-people of color be able to see this movie?’ and he was like, ‘Yes. I’ve watched white characters for so long and connected with them.’”

Would you like to see Barry Jenkins direct a Marvel movie? What property do you think he should tackle? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Avengers: Infinity War is now available on digital platforms, DVD, and Blu-ray. Ant-Man and the Wasp is in theaters now. Other upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe movies include Captain Marvel on March 8, 2019; the fourth Avengers movie on May 3, 2019; and Spider-Man: Far From Home on July 5, 2019.