The Martin Scorsese vs. Marvel debate has become so repetitive that I now hesitate to post every single news item about it. It was quieting down after months of seemingly everyone in Hollywood weighing in on it, but Disney CEO Bob Iger isn’t quitting on it just yet. The Disney boss, 2019’s Time’s businessperson of the year, told the magazine [via IndieWire] that he and Scorsese’s team are arranging a meeting to “discuss the state of cinema”.
In his interview with Time magazine, Iger called Scorsese’s comments “nasty” and “not fair to the people who are making the movies.” Time reporter Belinda Luscombe notes that Iger mostly “brushes [the comments] off.” Misguidingly, Iger, yet again, decides to give as an example “Black Panther,” the Ryan Coogler-directed Marvel film nominated for Best Picture, being cinema. Luscombe writes for Time, “Whenever [Bob Iger is] accused of taking no risks, Iger points to ‘Black Panther,’ which he considers one of his top five career achievements.” Gawd.
Iger had previously spoken out about Martin Scorsese’s Marvel criticisms at a recent event, Iger was asked about the comments made by Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, the latter of which called Marvel films “despicable,” and responded by saying “I’m puzzled by it,” Iger said. “If they want to bitch about movies it’s certainly their right. It seems so disrespectful to all the people who work on those films who are working just as hard as the people who are working on their films and are putting their creative souls on the line just like they are.”
He then went on to compare“Black Panther” to anything Scorsese and/or Coppola have directed in their landmark careers, “are you telling me that Ryan Coogler making ‘Black Panther’ is doing something that somehow or another is less than anything Marty Scorsese or Francis Ford Coppola have ever done on any one of their movies? Come on.”
The Disney head honcho’s chutzpah in comparing “Black Panther” to anything Scorsese and/or Coppola have directed in their landmark careers is no doubt the wrong road to take in this debate, but, judging by today’s Time interview, it’s the rebuttal he will be using to make the case for Marvel as “cinema.”
More to come… (I guess)
Amazon/MGM Studios has dated the live-action/CGI hybrid, starring Dwayne Johnson and directed by Benny Safdie, as a family-friendly holiday movie for December 25, 2027.