Plus, Victoria Mahoney reveals that the epic swordfight between Thurman and Charlize Theron was almost just "an amuse-bouche."Key PointsThe Old Guard 2 director Victoria Mahoney talks about wanting to cast Uma Thurman so bad that she shared "secret texts in the night" with the star's manager.

Perhaps that also has to do with the quality of “The Old Guard 2,” which feels like a step down from the first movie, which provided much-needed escapism in the summer of 2020 as we met Theron’s Andromache the Scythian (Andy, for short) and welcomed KiKi Layne’s new immortal Nile.

Marvel has tricked the cinematic world into thinking that action movies should—and can effectively be—helmed by directors with little to no action experience. The latest example of this dreary 21st-century trend is The Old Guard 2,