Here's The Thing: He's Not Wrong

So this week's Hollywood heavy that's hating on Marvel movies is Quentin Tarantino.  On some podcast or other he's dropped some lines that make great clickbait headlines and pretty much all my favourite sites are running one or two articles about it.

The relevant bits are as follows:

“Part of the Marvel-ization of Hollywood is…you have all these actors who have become famous playing these characters. But they’re not movie stars. Right? Captain America is the star. Or Thor is the star. I mean, I’m not the first person to say that. I think that’s been said a zillion times…but it’s like, you know, it’s these franchise characters that become a star.”

That bit about guys like Chris Evans or Chris Hemsworth not being movie stars is what's grabbing headlines.  It's not really wrong though.  Name a movie that either has headlined that has made big bucks that ISN'T a Marvel movie.  He's not saying that these guys are bad actors or even unsuccessful, just that they're in a position that their characters are bigger than them.  Marvel has some real movie stars in its stable like Samuel Jackson and Robert Downey Jr., but it's in the business of turning out movies, not movie stars.

Tarantino goes on to say:

“Look, I used to collect Marvel comics like crazy when I was a kid.  There’s an aspect that if these movies were coming out when I was in my twenties, I would totally be [frick]ing happy and totally love them. I mean, they wouldn’t be the only movies being made. They would be those movies amongst other movies. But, you know, I’m almost 60, so yeah. No, I’m not quite as excited about them.

My only axe to grind against them is they’re the only things that seem to be made. And they’re the only things that seem to generate any kind of excitement amongst a fan base or even for the studio making them. That’s what they’re excited about. And so it’s just the fact that they are the entire representation of this era of movies right now. There’s not really much room for anything else. That’s my problem.”

I think that it's fair to say ALL of that.  I happen to be in the minority of people who would always prefer a movie like Black Adam to something like Pulp Fiction but there's little doubt that the super hero phenomenon has taken over Hollywood for the moment.  At the moment, if your movie pitch doesn't have a cape, it better have a dinosaur or a laser pistol in it if you want any of that crazy Hollywood money to make it.

I happen to like that mindset, but I can see how it gets up Tarantino's (and Coppola's and Scorsese's) nose.  To be fair, they're the old guard of the Hollywood director's club, but there's no question these guys who keep bashing the Marvel model have a point.  It just happens to be a point that I'm happy they're not winning at the moment.

I've long been saying that the super hero bubble will one day burst and I've been wrong up to now.  One day in the not too distant future, I suspect that I, like Tarantino, will not be.