Hollywood Directors distate for the MCU...

[CTTT]

What's with the recent negative press by Scorsese and Terry Gilliam and the MCU? Scorsese has said that the MCU is nothing more than a theme park and that he didn't get it, or why the films make so much money. To be fair, I don't think Marvel would let Scorsese do the movie his way because they have a certain pattern and rhythm to it, for lack of a better word, formulaic? If Scorsese looked a little deeper, he could see that Tony Stark at least initially was inspired by Howard Hughes, which he made into The Aviator. Terry Gilliam was more blunt saying that BP was crap, and the MCU hogs all the money with no spreading of the wealth for other movies. Francis Ford Coppola made a similar comment, which is ironic considering his nephew Nicolas Cage is a MASSIVE comic book fan. So, I don't get the hate. While Iron Man doesn't compare to Citizen Kane, the movies still have quality production values and acting. And yeah the films make money like gangbusters but....they only release 3 movies a year. Hardly a monopoly.

[jetengine]

Scorseses salty that Irishman has to go to Netflix and that his boomer esque (ie: not natural and a result of very specific circumstances) "golden age of cinema" ended.

Gilliams taken 20 odd years to get a single movie out and recently said "White people are overtly demonised" so this kind of talk isnt surprising from the king of bad takes.

Coppola hasnt made a thing in years so his opinion is somewhat irrelevant.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Scorcese, Gilliam and Coppola are, in my opinion, all part of the “Get off my lawn” brigade, salty old farts raging against the dying of the light that’s their version of Hollywood. Beyond the money Marvel movies rake in hand over fist, I also suspect those guys are also jealous of how successful the films have been, and yeah, while the films aren’t Citizen Kane, they’re entertaining to the people who watch them, that’s the important thing, and it’s what those guys have patently ignored in favor of needless dissing of the MCU.

[Jim Kelly]

I don't necessarily agree with Martin Scorsese. Although, I haven't heard or read what he's said directly--I'm just going off what other people have said he said. However, from what other people have said, I can see why some of this would concern him and other auteurs. I would hardly call Martin Scorsese or Terry Gilliam or even Francis Ford Coppola Hollywood directors.

I think of Hollywood as being Disney and the other major studios--so directors that work for the Hollywood studios are Hollywood directors by definition.

Scorsese has very much a New York sensibility and a lot of his movies were made outside Hollywood. It was often thought that his movies were ignored by the Academy, because he was a Hollywood outsider. Terry Gilliam is American, but he achieved his success in the UK. I'd say that Hollywood didn't understand him or what his movies were trying to achieve. Coppola has tried to work within Hollywood, but he has had to struggle to get financing for his movies and his American Zoetrope produced or gained distribution for directors that the Hollywood producers wouldn't back.

I think a lot of Disney's output is antithetical to the auteur theory of film. And it goes back to the old Hollywood way of producing movies, where the director was a technician and not the author of the film (auteur is French for author). Since directors coming up in the 1960s were fully invested in the CAHIERS DU CINÉMA's auteur theory--they'd be sensitive to any developments in movie making that take away the director's authority over the movie and leave it in the hands of the studio heads.

While directors of Disney movies can still add their unique flavours to a movie, they are restricted to producing a movie that follows the studio notes. If Scorsese said those aren't movies--as I've read that he said, but don't know for sure or in what context--then he was clearly wrong. But those aren't auteur movies--the director isn't the primary author of the work, it's the studio.

The real danger I see in this Disneyfication of movie making is in something like the computer generated LION KING. Disney gets to use all the work of the original LION KING producers, crafts people and directors--but they don't have to give those people any of the profits from the new movie, even though the new movie is simply a computer generated version of the original.

If a movie has no author--or if the author is the corporation--then no human being owns the work--humans don't get fair compensation for their efforts. The money all goes to the corporation. We all become cogs in a giant entertainment producing machine.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Scorseses salty that Irishman has to go to Netflix and that his boomer esque ...

Scorsese isn't boomer. He's born in the early 40s, part of the silent generation.

Boomers are Bog Iger born in the '50s.

And you know, the biggest cultural contribution of boomers is the elevation of Marvel Comics itself. Superhero comics were dead in the 50s, but Stan Lee and others made superhero comics appeal to college kids and others in the '60s, and in the words of Gerry Conway the boomer generation's tastes dictated the elevation of superheros into somewhat respectability.

So it seems weird to use boomer as a generational insult while propping up movies based on characters whose fame rests on boomer nostalgia to start with.

[Sutekh]

Maybe he's right. Maybe Marvel movies *are* 'theme parks.' Maybe some of us *like* that sort of thing? They can keep making their movies, it's not like any of these directors are living in a shoebox or are lacking in contacts in the movie industry and being 'shut out.' Audiences will like what they like. Tastes change. Sometimes faddishly so, sometimes lastingly so.

The trend towards summer spectacle was long before superhero movies. Independence Day, Transformers, Pearl Harbor, Harry Potter, etc. provided the big summer blow-up-fest / big-screen CGI-palooza long before Iron Man emerged from that cave in Afghanistan.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Maybe he's right. Maybe Marvel movies *are* 'theme parks.' Maybe some of us *like* that sort of thing? They can keep making their movies, it's not like any of these directors are living in a shoebox or are lacking in contacts in the movie industry and being 'shut out.' Audiences will like what they like. Tastes change. Sometimes faddishly so, sometimes lastingly so.

The trend towards summer spectacle was long before superhero movies. Independence Day, Transformers, Pearl Harbor, Harry Potter, etc. provided the big summer blow-up-fest / big-screen CGI-palooza long before Iron Man emerged from that cave in Afghanistan.

Some have argued that Jaws was the first summer spectacle.

[Farealmer]

Wasn't this all addressed in the last locked thread?

[Joker]

Why don't we direct our attention to the sad state of "journalism" wherein these directors completely unrelated to superhero movies are being bated into commenting on superhero movies just to generate clickbait headlines?

Isn't that the real question? Isn't perhaps that where we should direct our ire?

[Flash Gordon]

The MCU flicks are big amusement park rides. The Disney Conglomerate has a real stranglehold on what gets made these days.

I don't think it's any fault of Marvel itself, but just the total lack of diversity of content in large releases.

I'd argue that the Irishman is no different though. It's another tired thing we've seen a million times, just with CGI guys.

[Flash Gordon]

Wasn't Marvel's entire base the Baby Boomer generation?

[jetengine]

Scorsese isn't boomer. He's born in the early 40s, part of the silent generation.

Boomers are Bog Iger born in the '50s.

And you know, the biggest cultural contribution of boomers is the elevation of Marvel Comics itself. Superhero comics were dead in the 50s, but Stan Lee and others made superhero comics appeal to college kids and others in the '60s, and in the words of Gerry Conway the boomer generation's tastes dictated the elevation of superheros into somewhat respectability.

So it seems weird to use boomer as a generational insult while propping up movies based on characters whose fame rests on boomer nostalgia to start with.

You ignored the rest of my quote which explains why I used the term.

[SuperiorIronman]

To put the whole situation bluntly;

Marvel Studios is a highly successful studio for producing superhero block busters and pretty much nothing else. They have an audience (and a built-in audience for the brand and specific products which is cultivated over decades) who returns every year and apart of Disney+'s sales pitch is including the product line along with anything associated with it. Highly successful with no real challengers to it even among Disney's own catalog.

You then take a look at the older directors who don't make nearly as much as the MCU products and don't have the same mass appeal that Marvel does and yeah, you'd be a little pissy about it. Nobody off the top of their head can name Scorcese's films but by god can they talk to death about the Thor movies. People go to see the Thor movies, nobody gives a damn about Dracula (and I even like that one).
At the end of the day they made it big in film circles but ultimately lack the mass appeal to get much funded. The monetary benefit and interest just isn't there and that's damning to a career.

[Flash Gordon]

To put the whole situation bluntly;

Marvel Studios is a highly successful studio for producing superhero block busters and pretty much nothing else. They have an audience (and a built-in audience for the brand and specific products which is cultivated over decades) who returns every year and apart of Disney+'s sales pitch is including the product line along with anything associated with it. Highly successful with no real challengers to it even among Disney's own catalog.

You then take a look at the older directors who don't make nearly as much as the MCU products and don't have the same mass appeal that Marvel does and yeah, you'd be a little pissy about it. Nobody off the top of their head can name Scorcese's films but by god can they talk to death about the Thor movies. People go to see the Thor movies, nobody gives a damn about Dracula (and I even like that one).
At the end of the day they made it big in film circles but ultimately lack the mass appeal to get much funded. The monetary benefit and interest just isn't there and that's damning to a career.

Scorsese never made a Dracula film.

This is also not true, a lot of filmmakers make movies for totally different reasons than selling a product. It is akin to writing a novel, or painting a piece. They're making some kind of art. Studios may sell that art, sure- but that isn't the primary goal of the auteur. You cannot compare that to making a THOR movie, which is a studio product from top to bottom. Sometimes there's crossover, and a film can be made that is both a vision and a product- but Marvel Studios has risen to prominence with their products because of the overall sameness of their flicks. They're movie serials, just in movie form.

I guess it is somewhat similar to comics. You can write Spider Man and get paid, but you're going to also want to make your own stuff. It is not as prevalent in comics though, since you can put a true authorial/artistic stamp on a Batman comic that you can not make on Disney's Marvel's The Avengers 6: Spiderman 12.

[Kirby101]

To quote Willow Rosenberg; "Bored now."