James Gunn addresses Martin Scorsese's remarks about Marvel, says he wants 'attention'

Suicide Squad 2 director, James Gunn recently addressed comments previously made by legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese. Scorsese has expressed his distaste for superhero films on several occasions including in an interview with Empire via The Guardian, in 2019, where he spoke about trying to watch one such film and expressed, "But that's not cinema." Here's what James Gunn had to say -

James Gunn's The Suicide Squad was theatrically released in the United States and in select cities in India on August 5, to critical and commercial success. Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jesse Plemons, Lily Gladstone, and Robert De Niro is slated to release sometime in 2021. 

James Gunn responds to Martin Scorsese's comments on superhero films

While speaking on the Happy Sad Confused podcast with Josh Horowitz Wednesday, Gunn spoke about how the multiple Academy Award-winning Scorsese was only going after superhero films, to drum up more interest for his own films. Addressing Scorsese's comments, Gunn said: 

It just seems awful cynical that [Scorsese] would keep coming out against Marvel and then that's the only thing that would get him press for his movie. So then he just kept coming out against Marvel so that he could get press for his movie. He's creating his movie in the shadow of the Marvel films, and so he uses that to get attention for something he wasn't getting as much attention as he wanted for it.

However, during the same interaction, Gunn also expressed how he respected Scorsese and his work. He added:

I love his movies. I can watch his movies with no problem and he said a lot of things that I agree with. There's a lot of things that are true about what he said — there are a lot of heartless, soulless, spectacle films out there that don't reflect what should be happening.

When podcaster, Josh Horowitz tweeted in response to the backlash he received for the podcast with people blaming for starting tension between the two directors, Gunn joined the fray once more. The director tweeted: 

What did Martin Scorsese say about Marvel and other superhero films? 

While promoting his film, The Irishman, Martin Scorsese spoke about Marvel calling the films "theme parks," at best. Expressing that even though the films were "well made," that's all they were, he said: 

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. It isn't the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being.

In November 2019, Scorsese wrote an opinion piece for the Times, where he explained the reasoning behind his distaste for superhero franchises. The director, responsible for films like Goodfellas, The Age of Innocence and The Wolf of Wall Street, in his op-ed said: 

Many of the elements that define cinema as I know it are there in Marvel pictures. What's not there is revelation, mystery or genuine emotional danger. Nothing is at risk. The pictures are made to satisfy a specific set of demands, and they are designed as variations on a finite number of themes.

They are sequels in name but they are remakes in spirit, and everything in them is officially sanctioned because it can't really be any other way. That's the nature of modern film franchises: market-researched, audience-tested, vetted, modified, revetted and remodified until they're ready for consumption.

IMAGE - AP