A while ago, producer Nate Moore was asked whether directors or writers should be already familiar or fans of the comic character they're adapting, to which he responded with a "not really".
He added that what they looked for was capability and experience in management and storytelling.
And this of course led to me to ask myself the question: is it a necessity to be a fan of the source material to adapt it? Personally I initially wanted to disagree with that approach, but the more I thought of it, it started to make sense.
You see, fans of the books, as Moore mentions, tend to be married to a particular issue or story, rather than finding what works from a story perspective and using that as a basis.
While directors like Coogler had a pre-established love for the character, and even recognized that some elements, like M'Baku, had to change, not every fan would be that open to do so.
What's interesting then is that when directors or writers are also comic fans, they are usually given characters they didn't really love. Such is the case of the Russos, who's love of Captain America happened when they started working on the project, looking for ways to make him more appealing to audiences.
And part of the job, as Nafe mentioned, is finding what is worth adapting. Like how Destin Daniel Cretton took the complicated family dynamic from Shang-Chi's comic history and used it as the basis for the story.
On the other hand we have directors like Kenneth Brannagh who don't have any comic book knowledge, and yet see how it was inspired by Shakespearean writing, and ran with it.
Still, I can understand this is a double edge sword, but I'd like to hear some thoughts about this. Do you agree or disagree and why?
And if you're interested, here's the link to that interview:
https://thedirect.com/article/marvel-studios-writers-comics-avoids
