The Marvel discourse rages on and now, it’s finally happened: Disney CEO Bob Iger is finally weighing in. Well, he’s both weighing in and firing back in a polite but passive aggressive manner at directors Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola for their very candid and shady recent remarks about the effect Marvel films are having on the state and quality of cinema these days.
The HBIC of Disney isn’t messing around in his latest comments about what many a venerated director has said, both nice and rude, about the movies made by a branch of the Disney family he oversees. While Scorsese and Coppola are the biggest of the names piping up, in recent days we’ve heard negs about Marvel from Ken Loach and Fernando Mereilles while Pedro Almodovár‘s Marvel comments from earlier this year about Marvel flicks have resurfaced and re-entered the discourse.
Image via Disney/Marvel
In the case of Scorsese and Coppola, in particular, Iger ain’t havin’ it. As reported by Fast Company, Iger weighed in on the never-ending conversation at a recent event. While initially complimenting Scorsese and Coppola for the films they’ve made and the craft they put into it, Iger wasn’t about to let them slide. He specifically addressed Coppola’s previous comments wherein he claimed Marvel movies are “despicable”: “But when [Coppola] uses the words ‘those films are despicable,’ I’d reserve the word ‘despicable’ for someone who had committed mass murder.” Okay, bud, maybe we don’t need to go in the direction of mass murder but then again, it’s a totally fair and understandable retort to a comment clearly loaded with some vitriol.
Iger continued, explained he “doesn’t get what they’re criticizing us for” and went on to comment:
“I’m puzzled by it. If they want to bitch about movies it’s certainly their right. It seems so disrespectful to all the people who work on those films who are working just as hard as the people who are working on their films and are putting their creative souls on the line just like they are.”
The Disney CEO concluded,
“Are you telling me that Ryan Coogler making Black Panther is doing something that somehow or another is less than anything Marty Scorsese or Francis Ford Coppola have ever done on any one of their movies? Come on.”
For more comments on the whole “Are Marvel movies good or bad?” discourse, check out our previous coverage of the most recent comments from Jon Favreau, Damon Lindelof, and Kevin Smith.