Martin Scorsese Has Explained How To ‘Save Cinema’ From Everything Becoming Comic Book Movies And Franchises

There’s a temptation to make the headline for this post something like “Martin Scorsese SLAMS Superhero Movies.” But that would be a discredit to his thoughtful words when the topic came up during an interview with GQ.

“The danger there is what it’s doing to our culture. Because there are going to be generations now that think movies are only those — that’s what movies are,” the Goodfellas director said, sending a chill down my spine. Scorsese believes the opposition to franchise saturation needs to “come from the grassroots level. It’s gotta come from the filmmakers themselves. And you’ll have, you know, the Safdie brothers, and you’ll have Chris Nolan, you know what I mean? And hit ’em from all sides. Hit ’em from all sides, and don’t give up. Let’s see what you got. Go out there and do it. Go reinvent. Don’t complain about it. But it’s true, because we’ve got to save cinema.”

“It’s manufactured content. It’s almost like AI making a film. And that doesn’t mean that you don’t have incredible directors and special effects people doing beautiful artwork. But what does it mean? What do these films, what will it give you? Aside from a kind of consummation of something and then eliminating it from your mind, your whole body, you know? So what is it giving you?”

Remember how dead inside you (and Tim Burton) felt while watching Nicholas Cage as Superman fighting a giant spider? That’s what Scorsese is fighting against. His latest blow against AI-generated movies, Killers of the Flower Moon (starring one of the few A-listers who has resisted the siren song of superheroes), comes out on October 20th. Tickets are on sale now.

(Via GQ)