Martin Scorsese calls on theater owners to stop invasion of Marvel movies

Nina Corcoran

The post Martin Scorsese calls on theater owners to stop invasion of Marvel movies appeared first on Consequence of Sound.

Martin Scorsese really, really needs you to understand that Marvel movies are “not cinema”. Now, the director is doubling down on his stance, as he’s called on movie theater owners “to step up” to Marvel movies to prevent narrative films from being pushed out of theaters.

Scorsese’s new three-and-a-half-hour crime drama The Irishman screened at the BFI London Film Festival over the weekend. During a press conference for it, an interviewer asked him about the future of the theatrical moviegoing experience (via The Playlist). He used the opportunity to once again call out Marvel movies, which he considers to be “theme parks” films to be invading the industry.

(Read: Film Review: Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman Accepts Age With Ingenuity)

“The value of a film that is like a theme park film, for example, the Marvel pictures, where the theaters become amusement parks. That’s a different experience. It’s not cinema. It’s something else. Whether you go for it or not, it is something else. We shouldn’t be invaded by it,” he remarked. “And so, that’s a big issue. We need the theater owners to step up for that. To allow theaters to show films that are narrative films. A narrative film can be one long take for three hours, you know? It doesn’t have to be a conventional beginning, middle, and end.” Watch video of his comment below.

By now, Scorsese could have watched a few Marvel films — like, say, Avengers: Endgame, the highest-grossing movie of all time — to understand why fans and critics alike consider them to be cinematic achievements. It appears he’s too busy being bitter that blockbuster action flicks, which have long existed and succeeded in the movie industry, get to be in physical theaters instead of The Irishman, which won’t get a wide theatrical release. Can’t all our movie genres just get along?

Martin Scorsese calls on theater owners to stop invasion of Marvel movies
Nina Corcoran

Popular Posts

Subscribe to Consequence of Sound’s email digest and get the latest breaking news in music, film, and television, tour updates, access to exclusive giveaways, and more straight to your inbox.