James Gunn Responds To Martin Scorsese’s Marvel Criticism: ‘It Seems Awful Cynical’

By Corey Atad. 35 mins ago

Martin Scorsese’s opinions about Marvel movies are still generating backlash.

In a new interview on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast, “The Suicide Squad” director James Gunn was asked about Scorsese’s comments on superhero flicks.

Back in 2019, on the publicity tour for “The Irishman”, Scorsese had likened superhero movies to rollercoaster rides, and saying that they were not real cinema.

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The legendary director went on to clarify his comments in an opinion article for The New York Times, writing, “So, you might ask, what’s my problem? Why not just let superhero films and other franchise films be? The reason is simple. In many places around this country and around the world, franchise films are now your primary choice if you want to see something on the big screen.”

Responding to Scorsese’s views on the podcast episode, Gunn said, “I just think it seems awful cynical that he would keep coming out against Marvel and then that is the only thing that would get him press for his movie. So he just kept coming out against Marvel so that he could get press for his movie. He’s creating his movie in the shadow of the Marvel films, and so he uses that to get attention for something he wasn’t getting as much attention as he wanted for it.”

He continued, “He’s one of the greatest filmmakers who’s ever existed. I love his movies. I can watch his movies with no problem. And he said a lot of things I agree with. There are a lot of things that are true about what he said.”

Gunn added, “There are a lot of heartless, soulless, spectacle films out there that don’t reflect what should be happening. I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve talked to film directors before they went and made a big movie, and said, ‘Hey, we’re in this together, let’s do something different with these big movies. Let’s make them something different than everything that has come before them.’ And then see them cater to every single studio whim and be grossed out, frankly.”

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On Twitter, many came to Scorsese’s defence against Gunn’s comments.