Disney CEO Bob Iger defended the Marvel franchise after directors Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford dissed the movies.
Scorsese and Ford called the Marvel films “theme park” movies and “despicable” in a recent interview, according to a report published Wednesday by Page Six.
Disney CEO Bob Iger brought the heat to Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola—who both recently criticized Marvel superhero movies as sub-cinematic—tonight at @Wsj’s tech conference. “They want to bitch about movies, it’s certainly their right.” https://t.co/6KqXTu52yL
— Ethan Smith (@ethanwsj) October 23, 2019
“It seems so disrespectful to all the people that work on those [Marvel] films who are working just as hard as the people who work on their films,” Iger added. “… Are you telling me Ryan Coogler making ‘Black Panther’ is somehow doing something that is less than what Marty Scorsese or Francis Ford Coppola has ever done on any one of their movies?”
Ford backed up Scorsese’s comments that the Marvel films weren’t cinema.
“When Martin Scorsese says that the Marvel pictures are not cinema, he’s right because we expect to learn something from cinema, we expect to gain something, some enlightenment, some knowledge, some inspiration,” and, “Martin was kind when he said it’s not cinema. He didn’t say it’s despicable, which I just say it is.”