French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat may soon be an Oscar winner for last year’s Demi Moore-starring body horror hit The Substance, which is nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay. Not bad for a movie that Universal stepped away from and sold off to Mubi after they were unhappy with the finished product!
Coralie Fargeat dives into The Substance‘s many behind the scenes challenges in a new chat with Variety this week, and the piece reveals a surprising little tidbit of movie trivia. According to the outlet’s sources, Fargeat was at point in talks to direct the Scarlett Johansson solo movie Black Widow for Marvel, which ultimately ended up being directed by Cate Shortland.
Variety details, “The story of The Substance was so personal to Fargeat, too, that she was willing to make huge sacrifices for it. She was broke while she wrote the script on spec, keeping creative control from start to finish. She turned down lucrative offers (and even cut short preliminary talks with Marvel, which had approached her to direct 2021’s Black Widow, a source says) so she could stay focused on the project.” At the time, Fargeat had made a name for herself with 2017’s Revenge, which established her as a powerful new force in the genre.
‘Black Widow’ (2021)
Ultimately, Fargeat’s decision to focus all her energy and attention on The Substance proved to be the best possible career choice, with Universal’s decision to give up the movie proving to be one of the worst studio decisions of the year. “I held on so tightly during the making of the film and the difficult postproduction phase, when everyone wanted me to make it less violent, less excessive, less gory, less frontal,” Fargeat tells Variety. The film made $76 million at the box office and already won a Golden Globe, with the potential to win up to five Oscars this March.
The Substance is now available to watch at home, streaming exclusively on distributor Mubi’s streaming service. If you’re not a subscriber, you can rent or purchase the film on all major digital outlets, and it was also just released on DVD, Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD this month.
