Legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese
really isn't a fan of comic book movies, and while he was once offered the chance to direct and/or produce
Joker, it's something he ultimately passed on.
However, Emma Tillinger Koskoff (the filmmaker's producing partner) did work on the DC Comics adaptation, something you'd think would increase Scorsese's interest in the project to at least some extent. Nope! While
Joker contained many homages to his work and is a hot favourite for awards season, the director is in no rush to check it out.
"I saw clips of it," Scorsese tells
The New York Times when asked about Joker.
"I know it. So it’s like, why do I need to? I get it. It’s fine." The fact that he so easily dismisses even a movie like
Joker is a real shame and it's not hard to imagine there being sour grapes that the movie made over $1 billion while
The Irishman was mostly forgotten after it debuted on Netflix last year.
Scorsese was also asked about his Marvel movie remarks and noted that he actually reached out to Disney CEO Bob Iger - who didn't shy away from criticising what the filmmaker said about the Marvel Cinematic Universe - about his nonprofit Film Foundation, which is seeking to restore and preserve movies in the Fox library (now owned by Disney).
"Then all this came up," Scorsese chuckled. "So, we’ll have a lot to talk about." According to a Disney spokeswoman, the studio is still trying to set up a meeting between the two parties.
To be a fly on the wall for that conversation would be very interesting indeed...
Which superhero movies from the past decade deserved
to win "Best Picture"? Hit the "View List" button to find out!
2008 - The Dark Knight
The Dark Knight is the movie which made the Academy reconsider their approach to the "Best Picture" category, hence why they expanded it to include more releases (which many ultimately mistakenly believed would mean that acclaimed blockbusters would finally get some much-needed attention).
Regardless, while there's no denying that Iron Man is an amazing movie and the best Marvel Comics adaptation to come along since Spider-Man 2, The Dark Knight was on a completely different level and given the way critics responded to it at the time, it would have easily walked away with this prize.