This has certainly been a strange week for comic book movies. One one side of the coin, Joker continues to dominate the box office and is now less than a week away from becoming the highest-grossing R-rated pic in history, while on the other the Marvel Cinematic Universe is coming under heavy fire from a couple of legendary filmmakers after recent comments by Academy Award winners Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola.
Scorsese’s belief that Marvel movies weren’t really cinema to him and were more like theme park rides certainly ruffled a few feathers, before Coppola doubled down and flat-out labelled the MCU’s output as despicable. Both veteran directors have faced heavy criticism based on what some believe to be an outdated idea of what cinema should and is supposed to be, and now Disney CEO Bob Iger has finally spoken out on the recent bashing his studio’s movies have been taking from two legends of the industry.
“It doesn’t bother me. Except I’m bothered on behalf of the people who worked on those movies. I don’t take it personally. Well, they don’t see how the audience is reacting to them, first of all. They have the right to their opinions. Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese are two people I hold in the highest regard. In terms of the films they’ve made, the films I like. The films we’ve all watched.”
He may be one of the most powerful people in Hollywood, but Iger is clearly a fan of Scorsese and Coppola. However, he obviously finds it somewhat disrespectful that the two elder statesmen of filmmaking are publicly bashing a franchise they have admitted that they don’t even have an interest in watching.
“But when Francis uses the words ‘those films are despicable’? To whom is he talking? Is he talking to Kevin Feige, who runs Marvel? Or Taika Waititi, who directs, or Ryan Coogler who directs for us? Or Scarlett Johansson or Chad Boseman? I could name a number of people, Robert Downey Jr.?”
Iger makes a great point here, in that its massively unfair to label the MCU as ‘despicable’ or ‘not being cinema’ when the franchise brings joy to millions of fans around the world, employs thousands of talented artists and professionals to work on their movies, and has assembled an eclectic and diverse talent roster both in front and behind of the camera. Just because an 80 year-old and a 76 year-old aren’t fans of Marvel movies, it doesn’t exactly mean that they’re directly contributing to the death of what they would call ‘real cinema.’
