It’s the discussion that simply won’t fade away into the ether of the pop culture conversation; Martin Scorsese’s harsh words for the Marvel Cinematic Universe and superhero cinema in genre have opened a can of worms that it’s beginning to look like nobody will be able to close back up again.
Francis Ford Coppola, Ridley Scott, Jane Campion, Stellan Skarsgard, James Gunn, Paul Thomas Anderson, Denis Villenueve, Kevin Feige and many more have waded into the discussion, each offering a distinctly different opinion that leans into the positive or negative.
Spider-Man: No Way Home has been toppling box office records on a daily basis, winning rave reviews in the process. As a result, Sony and Marvel are putting it forward as a serious awards season contender, with Tom Holland addressing the Scorsese-shaped elephant in the room during a chat with The Hollywood Reporter.
“You can ask Martin Scorsese ‘Would you want to make a Marvel movie?’. But he doesn’t know what it’s like because he’s never made one. I’ve made Marvel movies and I’ve also made movies that have been in the [Oscars] conversation and the only difference is one is much more expensive than the other. But the way I break down the character, the way the director etches out the arc of the story and characters — it’s all the same, just done on a different scale. So I do think they’re real art.”
That’s about as eloquent a response as we’d expect from the dignified Holland, and his measured response has already gotten Scorsese trending Twitter all over again. It would be nice if we could just end the discourse that won’t go away, but that’s not happening at any point in the near future, so the heartfelt musings of people like Tom Holland will do instead of old men yelling at clouds.