Who is Nia DaCosta? Five Facts to Know About the Youngest MCU Director Ahead of 'The Marvels'

That's right, DaCosta was an attendee at New York University Tisch School of the Arts where she studied cinema. In fact, if you go through the NYU Tisch archives, you can see where they've been keeping up to date in real time with all of her accomplishments, which is pretty cool to see from an evolution standpoint.

After graduating, Nia worked as a production assistant for a period of time where she added some legendary heavy hitters onto her resume. Who were those heavy hitters? Oh ya know just Martin Scorsese, Steve McQueen, and Steven Soderbergh. Nothing major.

Three years before Little Woods made its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, the script was one of twelve projects chosen for the 2015 Sundance Screenwriters and Directors Labs. A good reminder that nothing ever happens "overnight"—there's always a lot more time and work put behind the scenes of something and someone successful than initially meets the eye.

Now that we have confirmation of Tessa Thompson's appearance in The Marvels, it should be noted that DaCosta and Thompson met when they were a part of the 2015 Sundance Screenwriters and Directors Labs, and worked together on DaCosta's short film Little Woods where Thompson was cast as the role of Ollie. Now eight years later they are working in the MCU together. A journey.

Yes indeed, in 2021 DaCosta became the first African-American female director to top the box office with the film Candyman, which was produced by Jordan Peele. Of note: Teyonah Parris was also in Candyman, meaning The Marvels will be the second time these two are working together.