Jon Favreau is the latest to weigh in on the Scorsese Marvel drama, which now also includes Francis Ford Coppola. For those who need a quick refresher, Goodfellas and Taxi Driver filmmaker Martin Scorsese recently made a series of comments expressing that he feels Marvel movies aren’t “cinema.” More recently, Coppola, director of The Godfather, not only backed Scorsese up, but went so far as to call Marvel movies “despicable.” This has, understandably, led to heated debate. Now, Favreau has weighed in.
As far as the Marvel Cinematic Universe goes, Jon Favreau is one of the key figures of the franchise. Not only does he play Happy Hogan on screen, but he also directed Iron Man and Iron Man 2. During a recent interview to promote his new Star Wars show The Mandalorian, Favreau was asked to weigh in on the situation, shortly following the comments made by Francis Ford Coppola this past weekend, and he decided to take the high road. Here’s what Favreau had to say about it.
“These two guys are my heroes, and they have earned the right to express their opinions. I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing if they didn’t carve the way. They served as a source of inspiration, you can go all the way back to Swingers… They can express whatever opinion they like and we’ll leave it at that.”
This seems to get to the heart of the issue. Here we have two of the most respected filmmakers of all time disparaging the most popular and beloved sector of modern movies that brings a great deal of joy to people all around the world. It’s tough to hear legends taking down something people enjoy so much. That said, Jon Favreau does have a simple point; everyone is entitled to an opinion, unpopular as it may or may not be.
Speaking further, Jon Favreau spoke a bit about the changing media landscape. Specifically, Martin Scorsese made his latest movie, The Irishman, for Netflix because no other studio would front the massive budget needed to bring the gangster epic to life. While much is uncertain when it comes to the future, Favreau sees opportunity.
Related: Martin Scorsese Continues Trashing Marvel Movies: We Shouldn’t Be Invaded by It
“There’s a great deal of uncertainty of where things are going to land, but there are opportunities in that time of change where you can come forward with a vision and say, ‘I’d like to do this.’ And there’s a lot of people who are vying for content. So you’re seeing a lot of passion projects come through. You see Scorsese with The Irishman, I don’t know that that would have been possible, with that budget level, and the technology required to tell that story, in a more traditional model.”
No matter what anyone things, outside of the movie going public, the MCU and comic book movies aren’t going anywhere. Avengers: Endgame is now the highest-grossing movie of all time and Joker (which Scorsese almost produced) is about to become the biggest R-rated movie ever. This news comes to us via CNBC.
