Director Martin Scorsese expanded on — but didn’t walk back — his recent remarks in which he called Marvel movies “not cinema,” telling Entertainment Tonight Thursday that they are “a new art form.”
Scorsese, speaking with ET at the Los Angeles premiere of his latest film, “The Irishman,” said big-time comic book movies are a “good thing” for families that enjoy going to amusement parks.
Scorsese added: “It’s something different from films that are shown normally in theaters, that’s all.”
The iconic filmmaker caught plenty of flack from Marvel fans earlier this month, after saying Marvel movies weren’t real films.
“Honestly, the closest I can think of them, as well made as they are, with actors doing the best they can under the circumstances, is theme parks,” Scorsese had told Empire magazine. “It isn’t the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being.”
The critique received blowback in Hollywood as well. Robert Downey Jr. said Scorsese’s comment “makes no sense,” and Disney chief Bob Iger said he was “puzzled” by the remarks.
During his interview with ET, Scorsese said his main worry is that investing so heavily in comic book movies will push out talented filmmakers that aren’t interested in making them.
“My concern is losing the screens to massive theme park films, which I say again, they’re [their] own new art form,” Scorsese said. “Cinema now is changing. We have so many venues, there are so many ways to make films. So enjoyable. Fine, go and it’s an event and it’s great to go to an event like an amusement park, but don’t crowd out Greta Gerwig and don’t crowd out Paul Thomas Anderson and Noah Baumbach and those people, just don’t, in terms of theaters.”
Scorsese’s “The Irishman,” starring Joe Pesci, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, is set to hit Netflix in late November, after playing in select theaters for a few weeks beforehand.