A few months ago, director Shane Black made a pretty huge revelation about some of the gender politics behind the scenes at Marvel Studios and Disney, particularly with regard to Iron Man 3 and Rebecca Hall.
Simply put, Marvel and Disney significantly reduced and rewrote Rebecca Hall's character. Why? Because female action figures don't sell, according to the stats. Rebecca Hall talked to the Toronto Sun about the situation from her perspective and it's pretty infuriating.
"I signed on to do something that was a substantial role. She wasn’t entirely the villain - there have been several phases of this - but I signed on to do something very different to what I ended up doing."
"Halfway through shooting they were basically like, ‘What would you think if you just got shot out of nowhere?’ I was meant to be in the movie until the end... I grappled with them for awhile and then I said, ‘Well, you have to give me a decent death scene and you have to give me one more scene with Iron Man,’ which Robert Downey Jr. supported me on."
That's pretty damning. But, despite this, Hall was supportive of Brie Larson's casting as Captain Marvel and Cate Blanchett's casting as Hera in Thor: Ragnarok. "It’s about time women started being the heroes of things,” said Hall. "They can also be the anti-heroes of the things."
It's a damn shame that Hall's role was scaled. She's a fantastic actress and having someone of her calibre in a Marvel movie really does help to legitimise them.
