‘You’re talking to an 80-year-old man’: Martin Scorsese reveals thoughts on if ‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie’ is pure cinema

At 80 years old, Martin Scorsese is about to present his 26th feature film this weekend in Cannes. The acclaimed filmmaker behind classics like Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, and more recent works such as The Wolf of Wall Street and The Irishman is one of the most respected voices in the industry, managing to stay surprisingly relevant in the face of its rapid changes.

As a result, Scorsese is frequently asked to reflect on the current state of affairs in the film world, which has been put through the wringer in recent years. The advent of streaming and a global pandemic have turned the domestic film experience into a largely small-screen one, with fewer and fewer films bringing audiences out of their homes and into the theater. One film that did, however, was The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which is currently in the lead for highest-grossing film of the year, making over $1.218 billion worldwide so far.

With his 2023 title Killers of the Flower Moon, which has been receiving attention for its $200 million budget and three hours and 26 minutes-long runtime, Scorsese hopes to offer the adult alternative to Super Mario. Speaking to Deadline, the award-winning auteur said “Films like Mario Brothers are excellent for younger people,” but that he hopes mature spectators will find their own reason to get to the theatre.

Scorsese admits to having, on occasion, opted to wait for a film to come out on streaming, but that he is “an 80-year-old man,” and younger people should still crave the communal theater-going experience – which shouldn’t be limited to tentpoles like Mario (or Marvel, which he has blasted in the past).

“Are [mature audiences] going to think movies were only for game movies or [tentpoles]? Are they going to think that’s what cinema is? To a certain extent it is (…) but it’s not for all of cinema. (…) I do think there has to be a concentrated effort to nurture an appreciation for films that that audience will go see in a theater as they grow.”

For that, the director asks for help from theater chains. He’s right in his assessment that in towns with a reduced number of theaters, it’s hard to find an alternative to the action movie blockbuster, which might turn audiences who aren’t interested in those types of films away from going to the movies, or even watching movies altogether.

Scorsese’s name and brand which he has cultivated over the years have allowed him to create the alternative and distribute it worldwide in a way that is becoming increasingly rare for auteur cinema, and that can actually compete against more masticated forms of filmmaking. Killers of the Flower Moon arrives in select cinemas on Oct. 6, 2023, before a wide release on Oct. 20, 2023.