Michael Mann is a Major ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ Fan

Michael Mann won’t be making a superhero movie anytime soon. His thrilling “Ferrari” is being released theatrically on Monday and his next project is most likely “Heat 2.” Then again, although he’s not a fan of Marvel, Mann does admit to being particularly fond of one MCU movie.

Speaking in an upcoming episode of The Playlist’s The Discourse podcast, Mann spoke about Marvel Studios and his total disinterest in the MCU, with the exception of “Guardians of the Galaxy”:

“I only make films that I feel passionate about and that placed me a little bit more on the frontier,” explained Mann. “That’s where I do my best work. I’d like to be a journeyman director, go from film to film to film, but I don’t think I’d be very good at it. It doesn’t get my blood running.”

He continued, “On the other hand, I think that ‘Guardians of the Galaxy,’ for example, not necessarily this last one, but the two before, have really worked and I love watching them. And the reason they work is because they have a really, really well done story structure behind them. So it’s exciting in the sense of being able to expand into myth that way and to create myth. I think that’s a very exciting medium. Let’s not say something I wanna do. I do wanna do a science fiction project, but it’s not superheroes.”

Notice the comment about the third film not living up to expectations, but Mann is a fan of the first two — which were actually quite good. I’ve noticed people who don’t particularly like the MCU that tend to point out ‘Guardians’ as an outlier because it is such a tonally different series when compared to the other movies.

Not every A-list auteur has to hate on Marvel. One can acknowledge that there have been a handful of positive exceptions in the 33-movie MCU. My own personal likes would be ‘Guardians,’ “Avengers: Endgame,” “Iron Man” and “Captain America: Winter Soldier,” and the total and utter guilty pleasure that was “Iron Man 3.”

“Ferrari” arrives in theaters on December 25.