Remember when we all spent every waking moment thinking of what old filmmakers think of superhero movies? Well, Martin Scorsese is back to talk about his mortal enemy: movies about people in spandex.
There’s no denying the contributions Scorsese has made to cinema during his decades as a filmmaker. That’s why every filmmaker should and does listen to him, as you can see during The Hollywood Reporter’s “A Revolution of Cinema” director’s roundtable. When the question of Scorsese’s comments on superhero movies came out, Scorsese was asked if he was ever approached to direct a Marvel film. “No. Never came to me,” Scorsese said, before going on to expand on his comparing superhero movies to theme park rides because of the spectacle. Then Lulu Wang talked about her own reasons now to enter the big blockbuster arena after Sundance hit “The Farewell,” saying: “You were making a distinction between cinema and the other thing, the bigger entertainment thing, which is really made by committee,” Wang said. “And that’s one of the reasons I don’t want to do it right now.”
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Scorsese’s respond? A simple “Don’t do it.” The director then expands on the difficulty of doing dramas when most studios are so focused on blockbusters and superhero movies. “It’s always been like that: ‘Won’t he stop with this art business?’” This is understandable, especially knowing how much time and effort it took before Netflix became the only company to allow Scorsese to make “The Irishman” since the studios weren’t interested in making it. “What they’d make back on something like that, they figured wasn’t enough, particularly because I had to do the CGI.”
When it came to the question of the theatrical release of Netflix films, Scorsese had an interesting comparison: “I have had a few films play one or two weeks in a theater and then get taken out. Especially ‘King of Comedy’. It lasted a week and a half. Never shown again.” Whatever you think of Netflix and their weird theatrical models, there’s no denying that studios not fully understanding how to properly exhibit their films, as it’s a problem that has happened in the past, but also still happens today.