Martin Scorsese is a legendary filmmaker, but he seems to hate superhero movies with a passion. It's hard to escape the feeling that there's an element of jealousy about them performing so much better than his work from a financial standpoint, and The Suicide Squad director James Gunn may have hit the nail on the head in a recent interview.
Talking to Josh Horowitz on his Happy Sad Confused Podcast, Gunn shared his thoughts on Scorsese's comments and why he thinks it was "awful cynical" in many respects.
"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," the filmmaker pondered. "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."
Gunn was quick, however, to make it clear he has no personal animosity with Scorsese and can even relate to where he's coming from...to an extent. "He’s one of the greatest filmmakers who’s ever existed. 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."
Some sites took the Guardians of the Galaxy director's words out of context, so he later took to Twitter to clarify his remarks and make it clear he has only one issue with Scorsese; his opinion that "films based on comic books are innately not cinema."
The Suicide Squad arrives in theaters and on HBO Max later today. Read our review here.
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