Quentin Tarantino, a well-known filmmaker, is getting some fairly severe backlash online for a series of candid comments he issues concerning the actors in Marvel movies not actually being legitimate movie stars.
The famed director of “Kill Bill” issued these comments while talking with host Tom Segura on his podcast “2 Bears 1 Cave.”
“I don’t love them,” expressed Tarantino when talking about the highly successful Marvel films. “No, I don’t. I don’t hate them. But I don’t love them. I mean, 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 f***king happy and totally love them. [But] they wouldn’t be the only movies being made, they would be those movies amongst other movies. I’m almost 60 so I’m not quite as excited about them,” he went on.
Tarantino echoed a quite common comment about the films, making the claim that they are repetitive and very overhyped, plus leave quite a bit less room for much more creative projects.
“My only ax to grind is they’re the only things that seem to be made,” expressed the famed 59-year-old director. “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 … 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. It’s a problem of representation.”
His next statement took shots directly at the actors themselves from the Marvel movies, stating that they were not actually what the people were coming to see. Tarantino made the claim that moviegoers only actually cared about the superheroes on the big screen without caring who actually played them.
“Part of the Marvel-ization of Hollywood is you have all these actors who have become famous playing these characters,” he claimed. “But they’re not movie stars. Right? Captain America is the star. Thor is the star. I’m not the first person to say that. I think that’s been said a zillion times, but it’s these franchise characters that become a star.”
The esteemed director wished for the movie star roles we saw in the past.
“Back in 2005, if an actor stars in a movie that does as good as the Marvel movies do, then that guy’s an absolute star,” he expressed.
“It means people dig him or her and they like them and want to see them in stuff. Sandra Bullock is in ‘Speed’ and everyone thought she’s amazing in it. Everyone fell in love with her … They were excited by Sandra Bullock and wanted to see her in something else. That’s not the case now. We want to see that guy playing Wolverine or whatever.”
His comments did not seem to amuse many of his followers.
Robert Liefeld, the creator of Deadpool, retweeted the post with Tarantino’s statement, marking it “the hottest of hot takes.”
In another tweet, he stated, “As a writer/creator it’s my passion as well as my job to create compelling characters and worlds that draw the audience in and connect with them. Same thing that drives Stephen King, George R.R. Martin, so many others. I’m in the character business.”
