Marvel to Critics: Superheroes Aren’t ‘Ruining Hollywood’
This year’s Academy Awards ceremony made it clear that for Hollywood’s elite, there is no more pressing social issue than the plight of great artists forced to direct, write and act in superhero movies. Critics, too, have made it clear as of late that they believe “superhero fatigue” is a widespread and virulent malady, and a glance at the imposing, theater-dominating slate of comics-based films that Marvel and Warner Bros. have planned for the next half-decade helps explain their concern. Audiences don’t seem to agree, at least not yet: Marvel’s latest, Avengers: Age of Ultron, had a record-breaking debut over the weekend, bringing in a $187.7 million box office haul. Unsurprisingly, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige also doesn’t have much patience for the idea that costumed crusaders are somehow ruining Hollywood.
“Well, I will say we’re in good company,” Feige said in interviews for Rolling Stone‘s latest cover story, “if you look through the decades of people who’ve been accused of that. Star Wars ruined Hollywood, Steven Spielberg ruined Hollywood — I’ll be in that company any day of the week. But the truth is, we don’t spend a lot of time looking at that stuff because we’re too busy trying to make the movies. I haven’t been involved in a project that’s been nominated for an Independent Spirit award, but I imagine those people put all their blood, sweat, and tears into it to try to get it done. That’s exactly what we do over here every single day.”
“[Only] they don’t have the Hulk,” added Age of Ultron director Joss Whedon, who was sitting in a Disney studio lot editing bay next to Marvel’s president. “The Hulk wants to do more independent stuff. It’s just his agent…” More seriously, Whedon continued: “The Marvel paradigm is new and is being copied by a lot of people, because it worked. But they’re being blamed for something that happened long before comic books became the basis for a lot of these blockbusters. And that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a trend that might be damaging where all the studios are putting all the money on the end of one thing and the smaller movies are getting edged out. That is happening — but I believe that has been happening for a while now, and that’s not something that I’m thrilled about.”