Francis Ford Coppola says Marvel movies are “despicable”
The legendary director doubled down on Martin Scorsese’s recent comments on superhero movies.
Francis Ford Coppola, the legendary director of Apocalypse Now and The Godfather, has doubled down on fellow director Martin Scorsese's recent criticisms of Marvel movies. Scorsese recently told Empire that the big-budget superhero flicks were "not cinema" and more akin to "theme parks," though he conceded that they were "well made." Coppola wasn't nearly so deferential, however, when speaking to the French media after receiving the Prix Lumiere for his contributions to cinema, according to France 24:
When Martin Scorsese says that 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. I don’t know that anyone gets anything out of seeing the same movie over and over again. Martin was kind when he said it’s not cinema. He didn’t say it’s despicable, which I just say it is.
A handful of Marvel directors, inevitably, defended their work on social media after Coppola's comments, just as they did in the wake of Scorsese's. James Gunn, who directed Guardians of the Galaxy and Suicide Squad, said that it was a question of taste, not quality. “Not everyone will be able to appreciate [superhero films],” he wrote on Instagram, “even some geniuses.” Judd Apatow, who hasn't directed a Marvel film yet but seems convinced he'll be roped into one any minute, was a little more straightforward. "It sounds like someone’s grandpa complaining about Elvis shaking his hips," he wrote on Twitter.