Martin Scorsese is urging filmmakers to save cinema, by doubling down on his call to fight comic book movie culture.
The storied filmmaker is revisiting the topic of comic book movies in a new profile for GQ. Despite facing intense blowback from filmmakers, actors and the public for the 2019 comments he made slamming the Marvel Cinematic Universe films â he called them theme parks rather than actual cinema â Scorsese isnât shying away from the topic.
âThe danger there is what itâs doing to our culture,â he told GQ. âBecause there are going to be generations now that think ⊠thatâs what movies are.â
GQâs Zach Baron posited that what Scorsese was saying might already be true, and the âKillers of the Flower Moonâ filmmaker agreed.
âThey already think that. Which means that we have to then fight back stronger. And itâs got to come from the grassroots level. Itâs gotta come from the filmmakers themselves,â Scorsese continued to the outlet. âAnd youâll have, you know, the Safdie brothers, and youâll have Chris Nolan, you know what I mean? And hit âem from all sides. Hit âem from all sides, and donât give up. ⊠Go reinvent. Donât complain about it. But itâs true, because weâve got to save cinema.â
Scorsese referred to movies inspired by comic books as âmanufactured contentâ rather than cinema.
âItâs almost like AI making a film,â he said. âAnd that doesnât mean that you donât have incredible directors and special effects people doing beautiful artwork. But what does it mean? What do these films, what will it give you?â
His forthcoming film, âKillers of the Flower Moon,â had been on Scorseseâs wish list for several years; itâs based on David Grannâs 2017 nonfiction book of the same name. He called the story âa sober look at who we are as a culture.â
The film tells the true story of the murders of Osage Nation members by white settlers in the 1920s. DiCaprio originally was attached to play FBI investigator Tom White, who was sent to the Osage Nation within Oklahoma to probe the killings. The script, however, underwent a significant rewrite.
âAfter a certain point,â the filmmaker told Time, âI realized I was making a movie about all the white guys.â
The dramatic focus shifted from Whiteâs investigation to the Osage and the circumstances that led to them being systematically killed with no consequences.
The character of White now is played by Jesse Plemons in a supporting role. DiCaprio stars as the husband of a Native American woman, Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone), an oil-rich Osage woman, and member of a conspiracy to kill her loved ones in an effort to steal her family fortune.
Scorsese worked closely with Osage Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear and his office from the beginning of production, consulting producer Chad Renfro told Time. On the first day of shooting, the Oscar-winning filmmaker had an elder of the nation come to set to say a prayer for the cast and crew.
It literally is a zero sum game. Studios dump all their money into these types of movies and thereâs no money left over for the âstory about the deepest darkest recesses of the human mind.â
And yet A24 exists and continues to find success.
https://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-records/worldwide/all-movies/theatrical-distributors/a24
A24 has an online cult following, but they struggle at the box office even with wide releases.
You are assuming that if Marvel movies didnât exist everyone would just go watch Requiem for a Dream instead, which is just silly. They target different audiences and the same people could choose to see one today and the other tomorrow. Itâs not like Oppenheimer was made by a bunch of indies scraping money on Kickstarter.
Iâm not assuming anything like that. Thatâs you putting your ridiculous dichotomic outlook of any subject into someone elseâs mouth. Thereâs a good chance if Requiem for a Dream required a 2023 movie budget, it wouldnât have even been made. An unknown director/writer with a 2023 budget with a movie like that? Ha. There would have been no option to see that the next day. Also, are you comparing Requiem for a Dream to Oppenheimer?
disney isnât the only one funding movies.
your regular $15m arty pantsy black and white movie isnât paid for the mouse.