The movie Brian Cox pinpointed as the death of cinema: “It’s just become a party time”
When the role of Logan Roy in Succession was slid onto the desk of Brian Cox‘s agent, they must have been counting their lucky stars. The requirements? Play a cantankerous cynic, with vast amounts of wealth, who tells everyone and everything in his wake to “Fuck off!”
If you think I’m over-egging his uncompromising nature, then may I remind you that the original role of Roy wasn’t meant to be Scottish. He was, in fact, supposed to hail from Quebec, Canada, but after a period of successful lobbying from Cox, the producers decided to cave and flip Roy’s place of origin to Dundee.
Clearly, though, Cox knows best, as pivoting the news mogul to become as Scottish as Cox himself was a masterful one. It added to the hardened edge of Roy’s character, which seemed genuinely worlds apart from his troupe of mollycoddled, Manhattan-dwelling children. And that shift was integral to the storyline, which saw Roy drifting apart from his children one episode after another, as he began to realise that none of them were worthy of the show’s title.
That story arc is what made Succession one of the most beloved TV shows of the past decade. It has been one of many incredible stories written for the smaller screen, where it seems a large portion of creative quality now exists. Actors as esteemed as Cox are flocking to the next great HBO-backed project, and clutching Emmys with the same reverence as an Oscar, knowing that silver screen stories are drying up and the very best is yet to come on television.
While Cox is happy to jump ship and receive the acclaim he rightfully deserves for Succession, he does so with one cautionary eye kept on cinema. After all, that was the medium he was taught to emulate towards in the early part of his career and one despite all of the warning signs, he still quietly believes in.
But that belief was delivered in a quip that would make the uncompromising Roy proud. When asked about the state of modern cinema, Cox labelled one film franchise as being the root of all the problems.
He said, “What’s happened is that television is doing what cinema used to do. I think cinema is in a very bad way,” adding, “I think it’s lost its place because of, partly, the grandiose element between Marvel, DC and all of that. And I think it’s beginning to implode, actually. You’re kind of losing the plot.”
He continued to reference Deadpool and Wolverine as industry cash cows, stating that they are “making a lot of money” and “that’ll make everybody happy, but in terms of the work, it becomes diluted afterwards”. He then added, “So it’s just become a party time for certain actors to do this stuff. When you know that Hugh Jackman can do a bit more, Ryan Reynolds, but it’s because they go down that road, and it’s box office. They make a lot of money. You can’t knock it.”
But contrary to the TV role he has become more contemporarily famous for, Cox is acutely aware that your legacy in life is made up of more than just your financial value. With Cox entering the twilight of his career, it’s now time to decide who will succeed him in this crusade to save cinema.
