In 2019, legendary director Martine Scorsese took aim at the Marvel Cinematic Universe, saying that the films weren’t real “cinema” and kickstarting a massive discourse on the topic. Now, James Gunn — director of the upcoming The Suicide Squad film and all three Guardians of the Galaxy films — is speaking up on Scorsese’s comments.
RELATED: It’s About to Get Dark in Don’t Breathe 2 Red Band Trailer
“I just think it seems awful cynical that he would keep coming out against Marvel and then that is the only thing that would get him press for his movie,” said Gunn in an interview with MTV’s Josh Horowitz (transcription via ThePlaylist). “So 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.”
Some very honest thoughts here from James Gunn on defending comic book movies from the likes of Martin Scorsese. Yikes. https://t.co/RUtfz9L6oK pic.twitter.com/d4CKkZeM2w
— Josh Horowitz (@joshuahorowitz) August 4, 2021
RELATED: Mary Elizabeth Winstead Has No Time For Mercy in Netflix’s Kate Trailer
Despite the somewhat harsh comments, Gunn says that he’s still extremely respectful of Scorsese, and that some of what he said may not even be totally wrong when it comes to filmmaking in the modern-day.
“He’s one of the greatest filmmakers who’s ever existed,” said Gunn. “I love his movies. I can watch his movies with no problem. And he said a lot of things I agree with. There are 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. I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve talked to film directors before they went and made a big movie, and said, ‘Hey, we’re in this together, let’s do something different with these big movies. Let’s make them something different than everything that has come before them.’ And then see them cater to every single studio whim and be grossed out, frankly.”
