The movies Ridley Scott hates with a passion: “They’re fucking boring as shit”
After Martin Scorsese’s infamous comment that Marvel movies are like amusement parks, there have been endless discussions and debates about superhero movies and whether they qualify as ‘art’.
It’s a subject that has sparked contention and heated opinions, with some expressing that the disdain towards these films is elitist and pretentious, that art is subjective, and that its value cannot be quantified. However, some have made it clear that they don’t approve of these stories, and because of the formulaic way in which they are created, they don’t truly reflect the art of filmmaking. Surprisingly, Ridley Scott has rooted himself in the latter camp, describing his disdain towards these movies despite inadvertently belonging to this camp himself.
The Marvel universe has been heavily debated among film lovers and cinephiles who question its validity as an art form. The studio became famous for churning out sequels and reboots and modifying the process of filmmaking. It’s unsurprising that the business of making films has become tainted by capitalism, with Marvel treating each project like a product and attempting to squeeze the most money out of every story.
When asked about this approach, Scott said, “Almost always, the best films are driven by the characters, and we’ll come to superheroes after this if you want because I’ll crush it. I’ll fucking crush it. They’re fucking boring as shit. Their scripts are not any fucking good. I think I’ve done three great scripted superhero movies. One would be Alien with Sigourney Weaver. One would be fucking Gladiator, and one would be Harrison Ford…”
While Scott seems to be convinced that he would create a more convincing story within the Marvel universe, I would argue that his recent projects suggest otherwise. Gladiator 2 was nothing but a glorified superhero movie. Over the years, he has commercialised his approach to filmmaking in the same way as the studio, with his collaborators criticising his lazy working style by leaning on special effects to add or eliminate details that could be done on set, such as leaving water bottles in frame and asking people to remove them in post.
This is ironic given Scott’s later statement about Marvel films, saying, “They’re mostly saved by special effects, and that’s becoming boring for everyone who works with special effects if you’ve got the money.”
Scott’s recent slate of projects, including the incredible failure of House of Gucci and Napoleon, shows the full scale of his creative delusion, believing himself to be better than everyone while consistently churning out the same kind of drivel that only harms the culture of cinema as a whole. Neither of those films was motivated by character or story, and his work has become a poor money-grabbing scheme for people who once loved Alien and Thelma and Louise.
There are some directors who could benefit from some inward reflection, and Scott is one of those people. While I am certainly not a fan of the theme-park approach to filmmaking, at least some of Marvel’s productions are actually entertaining. The most unforgivable thing a film can be is boring, which Scott has managed to achieve with all of his recent projects.
