Ridley Scott is the latest director to express his opinions on superhero movies — and he thinks the genre is “fucking boring as shit.”
Scott, who recently released the well-reviewed but commercially unsuccessful The Last Duel, and whose next film House of Gucci hits theaters Nov. 24, brought up the subject unprompted in an interview with Deadline. When asked to elaborate on his gripes with the genre, the 83-year-old director answered, “Their scripts are not any fucking good.” He contined, “Why don’t the superhero movies have better stories? Sorry. I got off the rail, but I mean, c’mon. They’re mostly saved by special effects, and that’s becoming boring for everyone who works with special effects, if you’ve got the money.”
Before anyone took the opening to accuse Scott of hypocrisy, he acknowledged that three of his most successful films (Alien, Blade Runner and Gladiator) all could be considered “superhero films” in one sense or another. Scott said of these films, “I think I’ve done three great scripted superhero movies,” and used his experience with these high-quality action narratives as grounds to question why the quality of the genre as a whole isn’t higher.
Later in the interview, he clarified that he has no interest in making any more superhero films, because he feels as if he’s done it already. Colorfully describing the plot of Blade Runner, he said, “Harrison Ford was one superhero but everyone was confused because he got the shit beaten out of him at the end by the other superhero, who they thought was the bad guy, but turned out to be a good guy. I think that’s pretty cool.”
Many directors have expressed a distaste for the growing popularity of superhero films in recent years. Martin Scorsese said the Marvel Cinematic Universe works as “theme park rides” but doesn’t fit his definition of “cinema,” and expressed concern about the genre crowding more personal films out of theaters. Denis Villeneuve has said superhero films have grown too formulaic, but nevertheless showed interest in Chloé Zhao’s work on Eternals. On the flipside, Paul Thomas Anderson is a fan of the genre, listing Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Venom 2: Let There Be Carnage as some of his favorite films he’s seen recently.
Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel is now playing in theaters. House of Gucci will be released in theaters on Nov. 24.
Source: Deadline
About The Author
