Scorsese explains why he thinks Marvel movies aren't cinema

[Beaddle]

Exactly.

It’s a competitive market space and everyone (the studios in this case) should fight their space.

The thing is, Marvel/Disney have simply proven to be better than studios in producing films that connect with audiences.

It feels more like Disney is suffocating audiences and audiences are now more aware that disney has a type. they show up for anything but most are not going for quality.

These movies are very much Kid friendly but they arent made with Children in mind. They sell toys sure but 18-35 would be the biggest chunk of the audience if i had to guess.

I don't agree to this. many movies are kid friendly, they get pg 13 ratings but it does not mean it is interchangeable with being made for children in mind. MCU is made for children in mind, a thing Disney has confirmed to the point of even having spiderman tell Deadpool in one of his comics that comic movies should be made for children.

MCU is specifically made for children in mind, only reason their screenplay is always light hearted and their movies have little realism but in appearances and tone this is what attracts kids naturally. Every mcu movie this year is a movie that is more a fitted for children's market.

Scorsese's Hugo has a more adult appeal than MCU movies because the script of the film is actually compelling and is not reliant of colourful CGI.

Also your right they dont have a right to dominate but they also dont have an obligation to make room for other movies. If people want more they are gonna give them more. They announced more release dates and looks like starting in 2023 we are gonna be getting 4 movies a year plus all the Disney+ stuff. So there is no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

Personally think 4 movies a year is a bad idea, it could be a good thing if all the 4 movies look and feel different from eachother. I don't think it will happen because as of now mcu has mastermind the craft of specifics and a type.

[Beaddle]

https://www.indiewire.com/2019/11/jo...es-1202190112/

Well John Woo has now come against Marvel films. Who wants to "Ok Boomer" him?

John Woo Fears Marvel Movies ‘Will Make Young Audiences Get Lost When It Comes to Knowledge About Film’

a darm well fantastic piece by Woo.

Its not that far fetched, Scorsese ended up having more defenders. I read Woo's comments and its down to the same problem. these directors issues with mcu is the film making process of MCU that causes a lack of knowledge about films and I fully agree. for instance, I really shouldn't have to explain to anyone what are the requirement for academy awards in the major categories or why Joker has the best chance for comic film in 2020 but I ended up explaining it because like woo said, what mcu is doing is making people not understand films.

What is sad is many of these directors would never want to touch comic movies now as of 2019. the story would have been different before MCU movies. its bad for the genre but it is good for the MCU as it means MCU would never have to worry about their directors fighting for creative rights.

[Tofali]

https://www.indiewire.com/2019/11/jo...es-1202190112/

Well John Woo has now come against Marvel films. Who wants to "Ok Boomer" him?

Isn't it the wrong application of "OK Boomer" when I'm already getting what I want? The critiques from the gatekeepers are irrelevant because they're criticizing the wrong target.

[Username taken]

"Lose ownership of their characters". Let's get real here. These characters were created by Stan Lee/Jack Kirby/Steve Ditko/Joe Simon as well as others (like Bill Mantlo who created Rocket Raccoon, Starlin who created Thanos, Stern who created Nebula and Hickman who created the Black Order). And historically the creators of these characters had their contributions grossly underpaid, abused, and exploited. There's the whole Marvel Method thing where Kirby and Ditko essentially co-wrote those stories but didn't get credited/paid as writers, leave alone reap rewards from the merchandising and so on. Fundamentally speaking these characters do not belong to Bob Iger, Kevin Feige, James Gunn or any film-maker/screenwriter of the MCU.

Was it a risk to make the Marvel movies? Well yeah anything's at risk but at the end of the day they are making movies from IP created by people who won't make half as much for these movies and other products as they should. Artistically speaking, it's a bigger risk for film-makers like Scorsese to do a movie like Mean Streets whose screenplay he co-wrote and featured characters he created and invented. Same applies to Quentin Tarantino an Spike Lee and other film-makers. And of course over and above all, let's not forget that these characters are under the stewardship of Disney who have bullied legislators repeatedly to ensure their IP don't fall into public domain even when Mickey Mouse and others should have fallen in a long time ago. The success of these movies merely continue to consolidate the ill-gotten gains of Marvel and Disney corporate and if anything validate them. Heck that's probably why Far From Home has for its villain a guy who had his invention stolen without credit by Tony Stark and the movie goes out of its way to glorify Stark, more or less saying, "See he was right to screw over people".

I mean as bad as Marvel has been about writers and artists, Disney's history is actually worse in terms of Donald Duck comics where Don Rosa one of the most influential comics' writers has to work two jobs despite the fact that his work is being mined for the current Duck Tales 2017 cartoon.



Robert Iger was born in 1952, Kevin Feige was born in 1973. Iger is literally a boomer, Feige is second or third generation boomer maybe Gen X. So it would look pretty stupid for them to use that, and also pretty dumb for comics' fans to try and use them as edgy teen rebels.

From Scorsese's perspective, he's the hippy who always fought the man (and he did, he was a prominent Vietnam War protestor, he manned a camera and co-edited Woodstock), always voted Democrat, never once sold out...while Iger and Feige are literally the man. Likewise...most of the Marvel characters in movies were created by Lee/Kirby/Ditko/Simon/Don Heck who were all Greatest Generation people. The number of Marvel comics' created by Boomers are not many. As Alan Moore and Gerry Conway pointed out, the dominance of superheroes means that culturally the nostalgia of childhood of baby boomers defines that of the current generation. Most MCU directors are baby boomers or Generation Xers. RDJ for instance is an actor in his 40s...no millennial.

Spider-Man and his cast are the youngest being Generation Z and being stand-in for what MCU thinks their demographic is. The MCU movies paint him as a suppliant fanboy of Tony Stark who plays with toys his billionaire daddy tosses him. If you compare that to actual Generation Z kids like the Parkland protestors, he comes off as pretty damn toothless.

Scorsese’s comments are basically another form “get these darn kids off my lawn”. There’s always been folks in Hollywood that have problems with big budget blockbuster movies. However, his attempt at gate keeping and deriding his fellow film makers is petty. Honestly, that’s why I didn’t even want to post in this thread because what he said is his own opinion and was a bullshit point.

Marvel put up their characters as collateral to get funding for the initial phase of Marvel movies. If they had failed, they would have lost them straight up. Considering that outside of Batman and Superman and X-men and Spider-man most pure superheroes had actually failed, it was massive risk.

Scorsese WAS part of the rebel film makers but due to his success is now very much a part of the establishment. He’s pretty much Hollywood royalty and that’s why his comments carry the weight they do and why Iger and co had to respond to him.

[marshal88]

Scorsese is just telling disney 'gimme lotsa of your marnee and i made movies for you'

[Killerbee911]

Chris Evans and Scar Jo

Evans: Original content, it’s not there very often. That is one of the best things about Knives Out. It was something that I read that felt fresh and new. I think this weird chicken-and-the-egg thing, who started it? Did audiences only start going to lowbrow stuff, so that’s what we started making? Or is it that we made it first, and now that’s all we’re offered?

Johansson: Hey, speak for yourself. It’s interesting because a couple of people in the past couple of days have mentioned to me that a couple of extremely esteemed directors have been really vocal about how the whole Marvel universe and big blockbusters are really, like, despicable and the death of cinema. At first, I thought that seems kind of old-fashioned, and somebody had to explain to me because it seemed so disappointing and sad in a way. They said, I think what these people are saying is that at the actual theater, there’s not a lot of room for different kinds of movies, or smaller movies, because the theater is taken up by huge blockbusters.

Evans: I think original content inspires creative content. I think new stuff is what keeps the creative wheel rolling. I just believe there’s room at the table for all of it. It’s like saying a certain type of music isn’t music. Who are you to say that?

Chadwick Boseman

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/...210002281.html

But Boseman then told the BBC, “At the same time you’ve got to think about when he’s saying it. He’s saying it when he’s possibly campaigning for an award. He’s saying it at a time when he’s making a Netflix movie, so that’s how eyes get on his film and it’s not going to be in the cinemas.”

“It’s not going to be seen the best way. So, he again is speaking to the time period. He is speaking also to his advantage. So you have to take the truth of it.”

https://thegrio.com/2019/11/12/chadw...rtin-scorsese/

The mystery that Scorsese’s talking about, it’s in Black Panther. And I think the funny thing about it is, maybe if he saw Black Panther, he didn’t get that,” Boseman said.

“He didn’t get that there was this feeling of being unsure, there was this feeling of not knowing what’s going to happen, because we never had a superhero like this before. We thought that white people will kill us off. So it’s a possibility that we could be gone. So we felt that angst. We felt that angst that you would feel from cinema when you watched it. That’s cultural. Maybe it’s generational. I don’t know. But I’m secure in what we did, so his statements don’t really bother me.”

Natalie Portman

"I think that Marvel films are so popular because they're really entertaining and people desire entertainment when they have their special time after work, after dealing with their hardships in real life," Portman said.

Jame Gunn

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood...coppola-marvel

“Many of our grandfathers thought all gangster movies were the same, often calling them ‘despicable,’” he wrote in his caption, underneath a still of Rocket Raccoon and Groot from his Marvel movie Guardians of the Galaxy. “Some of our great grandfathers thought the same of westerns, and believed the films of John Ford, Sam Peckinpah, and Sergio Leone were all exactly the same.”

He continued, referencing a great uncle who once dismissed Star Wars as nothing more than a new version of 2001: A Space Odyssey. “Superheroes are simply today’s gangsters/cowboys/outer space adventurers,” Gunn added. “Some superhero films are awful, some are beautiful. Like westerns and gangster movies (and before that, just MOVIES), not everyone will be able to appreciate them, even some geniuses. And that’s okay

Jon Farveeau

“These two guys are my heroes, and they have earned the right to express their opinions,” Favreau said. “I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing if they didn’t carve the way. They served as a source of inspiration, you can go all the way back to Swingers [to see that].”

Bendict Cumberbatch

Despite playing Doctor Strange in his own film and appearing in Thor: Ragnarok, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, Cumberbatch agreed that superhero movies shouldn't completely overtake the filmmaking industry.

"I know there's been a lot of debate recently with these very fine filmmakers coming to the fore saying that these film franchises are taking over everything … And I agree, you know," he told Jenny McCarthy on her radio show. "We don't want one king to rule it all and have a kind of monopoly."

He also advocated for supporting other kinds of films, especially smaller ones, adding, "We should really look into continuing to support auteur filmmakers at every level."

He later adds, though, "It is a form of artistry — however it's denigrated by some — it still requires a hell of a lot of craft at a very high level."

Robert Downey

“I appreciate his opinion, because I think it’s like anything — we need all of the different perspectives, so we can come to center and move on,” Downey Jr. said, as Stern attempted and failed to talk over him. “You know this — you’re in therapy! You’re therapized!”

Downey Jr. added, “I mean look, it’d be like saying Howard Stern isn’t radio. It makes no sense to say it.”

There's a lot to be said about how these genre movies — and I was happy to be a part of the 'problem', if there is one — denigrated the art form of cinema," he said. "When you come in like a stomping beast and you eliminate the competition in such a demonstrative way, it's phenomenal.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Isn't it the wrong application of "OK Boomer" when I'm already getting what I want?

The point is that John Woo is and was a major Hong Kong talent who made it big in Hollywood, he was for his time a major example, maybe the major example, of an Asian director making it big in Hollywood and of course when Woo was young and relatively unknown, Scorsese was one of the people who helped shine a spotlight on him. Scorsese is not so much a film geek as a film hipster, he gets on-board stuff "before it's cool to do so". Woo is also not exactly an example of "the establishment" nor does he fit the image of out of touch old white guys and so on.

So that means this is actually a real aesthetic issue that people are serious about and they are not dismissing the MCU reflexively. So for some people who are trying to play this like it's some generational thing (even when technically speaking MCU is far more a product of boomer nostalgia and features more Generation X'ers and other pre-milennials than Scorsese's stuff does), I think you just lost your one of your arguments.

Marvel put up their characters as collateral to get funding for the initial phase of Marvel movies. If they had failed, they would have lost them straight up.

So a corporation loses avenue to make more money out of characters created by artists they screwed over, and in exchange it will go to another corporation who'll continue to do the same thing. Whatever.

To paraphrase a line from a Scorsese movie, "When I was your age, they said you could be a cop or a criminal. Now I say to you, when they point a loaded gun at you, what's the difference."

Scorsese WAS part of the rebel film makers but due to his success is now very much a part of the establishment.

Scorsese is not and never has been part of the establishment. His movies flop as often as they succeed, and he's managed to keep his head above water but that's about it. People who talk here about "establishment" or Hollywood royalty don't know what those words mean. By the way, Scorsese lives in New York City and that is where his editing suite (where he cuts his movies) is located, along with his offices. He hasn't lived and worked in Hollywood since the '70s.

[Colossus1980]

Says Woo who's coming off his huge sci-fi box office bomb Gemini Man.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Says Woo who's coming off his huge sci-fi box office bomb Gemini Man.

Gemini Man was directed by Ang Lee, who's a Taiwanese film-maker making films in Hollywood.

I can see that the MCU hasn't conditioned some fans from telling Asian people apart.

[Colossus1980]

Gemini Man was directed by Ang Lee, who's a Taiwanese film-maker making films in Hollywood.

I can see that the MCU hasn't conditioned some fans from telling Asian people apart.

My bad. I'm Asian as well if that makes it less worse and I've watched movies from both directors.

[Kirby101]

[B][U]
these directors issues with mcu is the film making process of MCU that causes a lack of knowledge about films and I fully agree. for instance, I really shouldn't have to explain to anyone what are the requirement for academy awards in the major categories or why Joker has the best chance for comic film in 2020 but I ended up explaining it because like woo said, what mcu is doing is making people not understand films.

That is patently absurd. Knowing the inner workings of the Academy Awards. Or agreeing with your opinion on the Joker has ZERO to do with people understanding film. I would say a large percentage here who love the MCU also have a pretty good grasp of cinema, as evident by myriad threads here.

[djoki96]

So, I'm a metalhead, so I'm very well of some other metal fans coming out and spouting some bs about newer music (pop, rap, hip hop, all that stuff) not being "real music", so this is absolutely nothing new to me. Same stuff, different faces.

[Jokerz79]

John Woo probably dissapointed the MCU doesn't have Doves.

[Farealmer]

I can see that the MCU hasn't conditioned some fans from telling Asian people apart.

I fail to see what the one has to do with the other. This is a bit too close to blaming an individuals flaws on the entertainment they enjoy. I am not comfortable with that comparison as it has historically been used for pro censorship purposes.

[WebLurker]

Really feels like the more interesting question raised by Scorsese's op-eds (are blockbusters pushing out other kinds of cinema) has really gotten lost in the attention that his other comments have gotten (e.g. whether the MCU is "real" cinema, provokes real emotion, Scorsese and other's personal dislike of the series, etc.).