The Marvels director Nia DaCosta found inspiration in one of the most divisive Final Fantasy projects – the CGI animated film Advent Children. Or more specifically, Advent Children’s style and fight scenes.
DaCosta made the comments in an interview with IGN ahead of The Marvels’ Nov. 10, 2023, release date.
“It’s just an amazing, amazing movie, and has really great fight scenes and has a really great ending sequence with the main character being thrown into the sky by all the other characters,” DaCosta said. “I didn’t want The Marvels to look like a video game in the sense that it’s more linear, but it’s the best kinds of games and stories that inspires me to play and I think inspires people to see movies like this.”
The Marvels Director Nia DeCosta loves Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children and used it as a reference when pitching #TheMarvels pic.twitter.com/NERqWsoOtS
— IGN (@IGN) November 7, 2023
Advent Children looks exceptional, especially for a 2005 CGI movie, but it doesn’t always go over well with series fans. It’s an odd sequel, set two years after Final Fantasy 7, but one year before Dirge of Cerberus, where a bunch of evil little Sephiroth spirits try to revive him using what’s left of Jenova, because apparently there were parts of the alien creature left (of course there were).
It was the start of Final Fantasy 7’s transformation from an introspective game about identity and purpose to a connected universe with a sometimes-flimsy story and even flimsier reason for existing. Maybe that’s fitting for Marvel depending on your relationship with the ever-growing superhero franchise, but the impenetrable plot didn’t endear Advent Children to critics and fans then or now.
It did, however, give Square Enix plenty of fuel for Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, both of which play around with the game-slash-series’ established lore in creative ways.
The Marvels is in theaters from Nov. 10, 2023, and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth launches on Feb. 29, 2024 for PS5 on two discs.
Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF