Here come the angry fanboys: Denis Villeneuve has become the latest big-name director to criticise Marvel movies, calling them “cut and paste” jobs.
In an interview with El Mundo (via IndieWire), Villeneuve certainly didn’t hold back. “Perhaps the problem is that we are in front of too many Marvel movies that are nothing more than a ‘cut and paste’ of others,” he said. “Perhaps these types of movies have turned us into zombies a bit… But big and expensive movies of great value there are many today. I don’t feel capable of being pessimistic at all.”
Villeneuve has become synonymous with ‘big and expensive movies of great value’: Sicario, Arrival, and Blade Runner 2049 were amongst the finest commercial movies of the last decade. His newest example, Dune, hits cinema on October 22nd and streaming via HBO Max one month later, continuing his run of thoughtful and expansive science fiction.
The filmmaker continued by pointing to a bygone cinema period as offering hope. “Just think of the golden age of Hollywood to see that commercial films can make a different artistic proposal and, therefore, political. I have never felt like a loss or an impediment to have a generous budget to do what I wanted to do. Upside down.
“Who said that a movie on a big budget can’t be artistically relevant at the same time? I am currently thinking of people like Christopher Nolan or Alfonso Cuaron.”
The two Marvel Cinematic Universe releases in 2021 so far, Black Widow and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, have received decent reviews, although Villeneuve probably didn’t take the family to see them.
He’s not the only masterful director to come out swinging at the MCU: Martin Scorsese famously caused an internet meltdown after he compared comic book movies to theme parks in 2019. His comments even provoked The Suicide Squad director James Gunn to get his knickers in a twist.
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Check out the trailer for Dune:
