Marvel's Secret Invasion Director Reacts to Poor Reviews

Director Ali Selim has responded to the poor reception of his Marvel Studios series Secret Invasion. Critics largely panned the $212 million-budgeted espionage thriller, which sees spymaster Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and ally Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) race against time to thwart an imminent Skrull invasion and save humanity from Gravik's (Kingsley Ben-Adir) faction of alien shape-shifters. Following Wednesday's "Home" season finale, the six-episode series currently sits at 56% "rotten" on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes — causing Secret Invasion to become the lowest-rated Marvel Studios TV series to date.

"I don't read reviews. With all due respect," Selim, who directed all six episodes, told Variety when asked about the show's mixed reactions. "For me, I view all the storytelling work I do as a dialogue with an audience. When the show is finished and put up on the screen, that's my half of the dialogue. And the audience then starts their half of the response to it. I think that's valuable, but I don't know. I don't know how to answer the question."

"I don't feel bad about mixed reviews," Selim added. "If you had unanimously good reviews, every movie would gross $10 billion, trillion dollars, right? [Projects] resonate with different people at different times for different reasons, and Marvel has a very devoted — even rabid — fan base who have expectations and when their expectations aren't fulfilled, they move in the other direction; they give it a thumbs down."

Reviewers praised Jackson's performance as a war-weary Nick Fury and Marvel Cinematic Universe newcomer Olivia Colman as MI6 Special Agent Sonya Falsworth, but criticized the sluggish storytelling and — as one critic put it — "lethargic exchanges" between its starry cast that includes Cobie Smulders, Martin Freeman, Emilia Clarke, and Don Cheadle. 

"I don't know — is it our job to fulfill their expectations? Or to tell the story that we're telling? So, it's a tricky thing," Selim said. "I would love it if everybody loved it, but I also don't have that expectation myself, so I feel great about the response to it."

At 56% "rotten," Secret Invasion ranks below Marvel Studios series Ms. Marvel (98%), the animated What If...? (94%), Hawkeye and Loki (both 92%), WandaVision (91%), Moon Knight (86%), The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (84%), and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (77%).

All six episodes of Marvel's Secret Invasion are now streaming on Disney+.