"Avatar" creator James Cameron (68) recently revealed that he can't do anything with the superhero characters from Marvel and DC. "It doesn't matter how old the characters are, they all act like they're in college," he told the New York Times in an interview about his new film Avatar: The Way of Water. In addition to the 68-year-old, several other important directors have already criticized the successful franchise.
Oscar winner Martin Scorsese (79, "Departed") had already strongly opposed Marvel in 2019 and vehemently defended his criticism several times. The Marvel films were "not cinemas" but "theme parks," the filmmaker claimed at the time. "We shouldn't be swamped by it. We need cinemas that stand up and show films that are narrative," he said. The movie theaters would be "taken over" by the theme park films.
"Cinemas have become amusement parks. That's all well and good, but you shouldn't raid everything else in that sense," he said. The Marvel productions just aren't his "kind of movie," the director said. "It creates a different kind of audience that thinks that's cinema."
Director Tim Burton (64, "Sleepy Hollow") is also not a particular fan of Marvel Studios and Disney as a whole. Occasional, inconspicuous individual projects could find a place with the studio, but Disney is mainly concentrating on the Marvel, Pixar and Stars Wars franchises, he told the industry portal "Deadline". "It's become very homogenized, very consolidated. There's less space for different types of things," the director said.
He added that he would never do a Marvel film. "I can only handle a single universe, not a multi-universe," Burton said. The filmmaker has a long association with Disney, where he began his career as a young animator. After the live-action reboot of "Dumbo" released in 2019, the relationship between him and the group was broken.
Filmmaker Ridley Scott (84) sees things similar to his colleague Scorsese. Superhero films are not his "thing" and he wants to "continue to make intelligent films", he said in 2016, among other things, "Digital Spy". However, he was asked several times. "I've done these kinds of films - 'Blade Runner' is really a comic when you think about it, it's a dark story told in an unreal world. You could almost see Batman or Superman in that world, in that atmosphere only that I have a damn good story as opposed to no story," says Scott.
"The Godfather" maker Francis Ford Coppola (83) jumped to the side of Scorsese in his Marvel criticism in 2019. The director said at an awards ceremony in Lyon: "When Martin Scorsese says that the Marvel movies aren't cinema, he's right, because we expect to learn something from cinema, we expect to gain something, some enlightenment, some knowledge, some inspiration." Coppola continued: "I don't know if anyone benefits from watching the same film over and over again. Martin was kind when he said it wasn't a cinema. He didn't say it was despicable, but I did say it is."
Oscar winner Jane Campion (63) also has a clear opinion on superhero films: "I hate them," said the director in 2021 at the AFI Fest "Variety". "I really hate her." When asked if she would be interested in directing a superhero movie, Campion replied, "I think it's safe to say I never will." She added: "They're so loud and ridiculous. Sometimes it's good to giggle, but I don't know what's up with the capes and a grown man in tights. I feel like that must have come from the pantomime. "
The German disaster film director Roland Emmerich (66) blames, among other things, the Marvel films for difficulties in his industry. Marvel, DC and Star Wars would have "taken over pretty much everything," he told the Den of Geek portal in February. "It's ruining our industry a bit because nobody is doing anything original anymore." Emmerich had previously said about Marvel films that he likes to watch them fall asleep on the plane.
The two-time Oscar winner Jodie Foster (59, "The Silence of the Lambs") already told the "Radiotimes" in 2018: "Going to the cinema has become like a theme park." In doing so, she spoke a year ahead of her colleague Scorsese about what both were thinking. "Studios that produce bad content to appeal to the masses and to appeal to shareholders is like fracking - you're getting the best return right now, but you're ruining the earth," Foster said. "It's ruining the viewing habits of the American people and ultimately the rest of the world. I don't want to do $200 million movies about superheroes," she clarified.
