Francis Ford Coppola already called Marvel movies “despicable,” so we already know where his mindset lies in regards to the current state of American studio filmmaking.
Now, speaking to GQ magazine, Coppola is once again bashing Hollywood studio films and Marvel’s monopoly:
“There used to be studio films,” Coppola said. “Now there are Marvel pictures. And what is a Marvel picture? A Marvel picture is one prototype movie that is made over and over and over and over and over again to look different.”
Coppola went on to give a few examples of “good” films that still seem to follow the Marvel blueprint: “The talented people — you could take “Dune,” made by Denis Villeneuve, an extremely talented, gifted artist, and you could take “No Time to Die,” directed by Cary Fukunaga — extremely gifted, talented, beautiful artists, and you could take both those movies, and you and I could go and pull the same sequence out of both of them and put them together. The same sequence where the cars all crash into each other.”
Coppola added. “They all have that stuff in it, and they almost have to have it, if they’re going to justify their budget. And that’s the good films, and the talented filmmakers.”
“I’ve said before, making a film without risk is like making a baby without sex. Part of it is risk, and that’s what make it so interesting, that’s why we learn so much when it’s made.”
These are very harsh words for a big studio system that, at the moment, absolutely deserves them. I’ve already said this, but 2021 was the absolute worst year for American filmmaking in a very, very long time.
Not counting international cinema, can you come up with ten 2021 films that highly impressed your cinematic tastes? Films that were uncompromised by studio intervention, and went by their own free artistic spirit …
The Power of the Dog, Licorice Pizza, Red Rocket, The Card Counter, The Lost Daughter, Passing, The Last Duel, West Side Story, CODA, Pig, The French Dispatch, and (the most under-appreciated comedy of the decade) Bad Trip.
I’m not saying all of these blew my mind, but at least they took risks and made for interesting directorial visions. Oh, and more than half of the titles I’ve listed are independently-financed films and not big studio movies. That says everything.
Suffice to say, the current state of Hollywood filmmaking isn’t getting any better either. 2022 has so far delivered not a single “good” big studio movie.
Paul Greengrass’ "The Uprising," starring Andrew Garfield, opened to $3.2M from 2,068 theaters this weekend. Yikes. The budget hasn’t been disclosed, but is said to be in the $20-$30M range.