The Marvel Cinematic Universe is the most successful franchise in the history of cinema…ah, but that’s the rub. Some old school directors have taken issue with the word “cinema,” particularly Martin Scorsese, who made waves a few years ago when he weighed in on the state of superhero movies. “It’s not cinema,” he said. “It’s something else. We shouldn’t be invaded by it. We need cinemas to step up and show films that are narrative films.”
He made similar comments at BAFTA’s annual David Lean lecture that year:
"Theaters have become amusement parks. That is all fine and good but don’t invade everything else in that sense. That is fine and good for those who enjoy that type of film and, by the way, knowing what goes into them now, I admire what they do. It’s not my kind of thing, it simply is not. It’s creating another kind of audience that thinks cinema is that."
Quentin Tarantino, another legacy filmmaker, also has less-than-glowing opinions about superhero movies. Their comments come back up pretty frequently, with lots of MCU stars weighing in. The latest in Kumail Nanjiani, who made the successful indie film The Big Sick as well as played Kingo in the Marvel film Eternals.
Kumail Nanjiani: Martin Scorsese can say whatever he likes about Marvel movies
“I obviously love the movies Tarantino makes or Scorsese makes, and I may disagree with Scorsese’s opinion on superhero movies, but I mean, who else has earned the right to have an opinion?” Nanjiani told Esquire. “If Scorsese hasn’t earned the right to have an opinion on movies, then none of us should have an opinion on movies.”
I like this take, personally. Yes, Scorsese does give off some “get off my lawn” energy whenever he talks about Marvel movies, but if there’s anybody I would obey when they told me to get off their lawn, it’s him. If you made Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Last Temptation of Christ, Goodfellas, Casino, Gangs of New York, The Departed and The Wolf of Wall Street, you can say whatever you damn well please about movies. “It’s so strange that people get upset about it,” Nanjiani added.
That said, Nanjiani does see how the movie industry has changed over the last several years, with studios focusing on franchise fare over original ideas, and he misses “the grown-up movies that have a decent budget, decent movie stars in the theaters.” He theorizes that if The Big Sick had been released in 2020 and not 2017, it probably wouldn’t have been released in theaters. “There’s a sense that people, unless it’s action or horror, don’t want to go to the theaters to see it.”
And I kind of get what he’s saying. I think that both Scorsese and Nanjiani see that the movies have changed, but Nanjiani seems a little less angry about it, or afraid of it. Industries change all the time, after all. And eventually, they’ll change again, so whatever Scorsese is so upset about will probably pass with time.
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