Cool... I wrote his bio for the site. Anyway, I'd say his work is mass market, as you say.

@Satch_the_man said:

Cool... I wrote his bio for the site. Anyway, I'd say his work is mass market, as you say.

Ahead of the release for Black Panther it feels like Ryan has done something special with the film but it is being smothered by the structure around the film. Disney is a lightning rod, social awareness and inclusion are flashpoints, Comic Book properties (like comedies) have a dismissive (can't be of artistic value) taint that to-date (Suicde Squad and the Dark Knight Rises critical recognition notwithstanding) tend to make them overlooked.

Any recognition that this film might earn may very well be discussed outside of Coogler's skills as a director. Patty Jenkins for Wonder Woman will probably wear the same albatross around her creative neck. She was awarded an Oscar BECAUSE she's female.

The winds of favor might be blowing in a certain direction and timing sometimes is everything but will the final product earn any true recognition? Coogler isn't Michael Bay but it will be interesting to watch and see if Black Panther can be judged not on a sliding scale but for the real merits of the efforts and results of all involved. Can't a Mass market director still create magic? Can't craft still be art?

From what I've read about his shorts (regrettably, I haven't seen any of them), Ryan might have left a bit of avant-gardism behind him.

@Satch_the_man said:

From what I've read about his shorts (regrettably, I haven't seen any of them), Ryan might have left a bit of avant-gardism behind him.

Coogler has stated that BP requires a Black Director:

“Yeah, I think it’s important,” states Coogler. “Perspective is so important in art. It’s an important thing. That’s not to say that you can’t work outside yourself. When I was coming up, I made movies about things that were close to me; I made movies about things that weren’t close to me. But I definitely think that it helps when you are close to a subject. Like, I was an athlete for most of my life before I was a filmmaker. And that helped to inform me when writing this script, when directing. Having had those types of experiences helped me inform this process. A lot of times with great movies, you find some part of the filmmaker’s life informing what they were doing. You look at Marty’s great movies. It’s like, man, you look at Mean Streets, that was his life. That was what he was dealing with. That was what he was coming up with.”

“If someone said, ‘What’s Marty Scorsese’s greatest movies,’ they’re going to generally be about the Italian American experience,” he continues. “People are going to throw out Goodfellas, they gonna throw out Mean Streets because it was something that was close to him. That’s not say that Departed isn’t a great movie. But the proximity…you could feel the director’s proximity to a movie like Goodfellas a little better because he grew up in that neighborhood. He grew up in Little Italy. That was his world. So I think that there is a potential for a greater truth when a filmmaker comes from a particular culture that they’re dealing with. That’s not to say that a filmmaker can’t work outside his or her cultural space. >But I do believe that the opportunity for the film to have more nuance will come when you looking at filmmakers that bring a little bit of that from their personal experience.”

Coogler also stated of BP:

"It's going to be my most personal movie to date, which is crazy to say, but it's completely the case. I'm obsessed with this character and this story right now, and I think it's going to be very unique and still fit into the overall narrative that they're establishing." Coogler said.

He is committed to putting himself into this project but does the final product represent something that is novel, a different POV (besides HIS POV) of the character and his craft? I am intrigued at the prospects even though he knows that what he is doing still has to fit within the Marvel narrative. I don't think Coogler is compromising himself or his craft at all; or the story that he wants to tell. I think he is a good fit but of course I don't think he is pushing any envelopes.