Are Marvel films “cinema?” Are they theme park rides? Is Martin Scorsese just an old man yelling at the clouds? Is this new generation of film fans conditioned to enjoy bad movies? Will this ever end? Honestly, the last question is the only one that we can definitively answer and sadly, it appears that’s a big ol’ no.
Speaking to THR, Marvel Studios president and Marvel Chief Creative Officer Kevin Feige finally broke his silence about the Scorsese comments that have dominated the film discourse over the last month. And surprise, surprise, Feige actually defends the dozens of films he’s produced over the last two decades of his career.
“I think that’s not true. I think it’s unfortunate,” Feige said about Scorsese’s controversial comments. “I think myself and everyone who works on these movies loves cinema, loves movies, loves going to the movies, loves to watch a communal experience in a movie theater full of people.”
One of the biggest issues that the “Goodfellas” director has with the current crop of superhero films (minus “Joker”) is the fact that they don’t seem to take risks. He said, “Nothing is at risk.” So, to answer that, Feige brings up a couple of recent examples of his films taking risks.
“We did ‘Civil War,’” Feige explained. “We had our two most popular characters get into a very serious theological and physical altercation. We killed half of our characters at the end of a movie [‘Avengers: Infinity War’]. I think it’s fun for us to take our success and use it to take risks and go in different places.”
Now, you can debate whether or not the “killing” of half of their characters in ‘Infinity War’ was a risk, considering we all knew they’re coming back just a year later. But I digress.
Ultimately, Feige said it all comes down to people’s opinions.
“Everybody has a different definition of cinema,” the Marvel boss said. “Everybody has a different definition of art. Everybody has a different definition of risk. Some people don’t think it’s cinema. Everybody is entitled to their opinion. Everyone is entitled to repeat that opinion. Everyone is entitled to write op-eds about that opinion, and I look forward to what will happen next. But in the meantime, we’re going to keep making movies.”
And that is most definitely true. Marvel Studios has already produced two-dozen films in the last decade and has a slate that includes 6 films debuting in the next two years and has 8 TV series (let’s be real, just longer films) that are coming to Disney+ over the next two to three years. So, despite Martin Scorsese’s issues with the genre, Marvel Studios and Kevin Feige are still going to produce superhero films for the foreseeable future.
