Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu has doubled down on his disdain for superhero movies. He recently told Variety‘s Marc Malkin that superheroes are “sad figures,” or was he talking about the fans themselves?
Inarritu seems to be alluding more to superhero fans and their constant attachments, not to mention, loyalty, to the genre. The infantilism of looking forward to the next MCU instalment. Or, at least, that’s what I gathered from his comments.
“I see heroes every day,” AGI explained. “I see beautiful people really going through very difficult situations and doing incredible things. And [these are] the people that I kind of connect with. But superheroes…do we really need that?”
He continued, “If you need that, is there something missing … instead of admiring what we have, the possibilities that we have?”
Iñárritu made headlines in 2014 by blasting superhero movies as “cultural genocide.” This led to a public back-and-forth between the director and Iron man star Robert Downey Jr. who bewilderingly responded by saying, “for a man whose native tongue is Spanish to be able to put together a phrase like ‘cultural genocide’ just speaks to how bright he is.” — Inarritu says Downey has never apologized for the “hurtful” comments.
Over these last few years, I’ve been updating a list of all the directors that have publicly criticized Marvel movies. It’s become a very impressive list that includes Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Denis Villeneuve, Bong Joon-ho, Lucrecia Martel, David Cronenberg, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, James Gray, David Fincher, Paul Verehoeven, Terry Gilliam, Ridley Scott, Jane Campion, James Mangold, Martin McDonagh, Luc Besson, William Friedkin, Ken Loach, and John Woo.
The bigger question I have is which A-list filmmakers have actually come out in support of comic book movies? Off the top of my head there’s Paul Thomas Anderson, Sam Mendes, Christopher Nolan and James Cameron. Who else?
Of course, there will always be exceptions to the rule. Over the years, I’ve found shades of greatness in some DC/Marvel movies: Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man 2,” Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight Trilogy,” Jon Favreau’s “Iron Man,” James Mangold’s “Logan,” and The Russo’s “Captain America: Winter Soldier.”