‘Yeah, they’re doing something very different’: Director Ali Selim confirms the one thing that will be missing from ‘Secret Invasion’

Image via Marvel Studios/Remix by Francisca Tinoco

If you’re like me and have been yearning for the espionage thriller tone of Captain America: The Winter Soldier to come back to the MCU for the better part of a decade, we might be in luck. Secret Invasion director Ali Selim and producer Jonathan Schwartz have confirmed that the upcoming Disney Plus series was largely inspired by the second Captain America film — or at least its success.

Speaking to Total Film magazine, the two Marvel creatives shared some insight on the process behind the making of their Nick Fury-centric project. From the very first few meetings, Selim knew they were going to be doing something “very different,” based on one small, yet very significant thing. The director was told by Marvel that “Nobody flies in the air in the show,” and was instantly intrigued.

Obviously, flying is a big thing in anything Marvel-related — a skill that virtually everyone seems to possess these days. However, that wasn’t always the case, and a good example of that is the 2014 film that the team behind Secret Invasion kept referring back to, if anything to remind themselves that a Marvel project can still become successful without any major magic or artifice.

Schwarts confessed to finding solace in the love the fandom has for 2014’s The Winter Soldier when developing Secret Invasion, saying the Anthony and Joe Russo-directed film “gave us a lot of confidence that we could tell a story in that space that felt more like a paranoid thriller.”

The trailer for Secret Invasion already indicates that the show will be delivering on that front — it clearly looks and feels like a thriller. Whether it will be a good thriller, however, we will only know for sure when the show drops on Disney Plus June 21.

About the author

Francisca Tinoco

Francisca is a pop culture enthusiast and film expert. Her Bachelor’s Degree in Communication Sciences from Nova University in Portugal and Master’s Degree in Film Studies from Oxfrord Brookes University in the UK have allowed her to combine her love for writing with her love for the movies. She’s a freelance writer and content creator, working in both the English and Portuguese languages in various platforms, including WGTC.