Chris Hemsworth irked by Marvel criticism from Scorsese, Coppola

Article content

Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page.

Article content

Chris Hemsworth says hearing criticism of Marvel movies from acclaimed filmmakers “bothered” him.

Article content

“It felt harsh, and it bothers me, especially from heroes. It was an eye-roll for me, people bashing the superhero space,” the Thor star told The Times of London in a new interview. “Those guys had films that didn’t work too — we all have. When they talked about what was wrong with superheroes, I thought, cool, tell that to the billions who watch them. Were they all wrong?”

The brouhaha started when Martin Scorsese, who has directed Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Departed, Netflix’s The Irishman, and Apple’s recent Killers of the Flower Moon, compared Marvel movies to theme parks in an interview with Empire magazine in the fall of 2019.

Article content

Article content

“I tried, you know? But that’s not cinema,” the Oscar winner told the publication. “Honestly, the closest I can think of them, as well made as they are, with actors doing the best they can under the circumstances, is theme parks. It isn’t the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being.”

Scorsese then doubled down on his comments at the Rome film fest that same year.

“Right now the theatres seem to be mainly supporting the theme park, amusement park, comic book films. They’re taking over the theatres. I think they can have those films; it’s fine. It’s just that shouldn’t become what our young people believe is cinema. It just shouldn’t.”

Scorsese wasn’t alone, with fellow Oscar winner Francis Ford Coppola piling on with his own complaints.

Article content

“When Martin Scorsese says that the Marvel pictures are not cinema, he’s right because we expect to learn something from cinema, we expect to gain something, some enlightenment, some knowledge, some inspiration,” Coppola said at the Lumiere Festival in Lyon, France in 2019. “I don’t know that anyone gets anything out of seeing the same movie over and over again,” the Godfather director added. “Martin was kind when he said it’s not cinema. He didn’t say it’s despicable, which is what I say.”

Scorsese later walked back his criticism, clarifying that he felt that superhero movies were oversaturating cinemas and pushing smaller movies out of the marketplace. 

But Hemsworth, who is in the midst of a worldwide press tour for Furiosa, George Miller’s upcoming Mad Max: Fury Road prequel, thinks that comic book films ended up saving the theatrical business.

Article content

“Cinema-going did not change because of superheroes, but because of smartphones and social media. Superhero films actually kept people in the cinemas during that transition and now people are coming back. So they deserve a little more appreciation,” he said.

Elsewhere in his chat with The Times, Hemsworth hit out at actors who have appeared in superhero films and then criticized working on them. Hemsworth didn’t name names, but his Thor: Love and Thunder co-star Christian Bale said in an interview with GQ that working in front of a green screen for the film was “monotony.” Meanwhile, his other Thor co-star Idris Elba called his work on Marvel films “torture.”

“It’s, like, ‘They’re films that are successful — put me in one. Oh, mine didn’t work? I’ll bash them,’” Hemsworth, 40, said. “Look, I grew up on a soap opera. And it used to bother me when actors would later talk about the show with guilt or shame. Humility goes a long way. One of the older actors on Home and Away said, ‘We don’t get paid to make the good lines sound good, but to make the bad ones work.’ That stuck with me.

Article content

“But hey, it’s all a lesson,” he continued. “And if I ever went back to (Thor) I’d wonder how we could change it again. But there is a superhero curse in the sense you get pigeonholed, and I’ve felt a little hamstrung with what I could do, so (I) desperately wanted something to scare the s— out of me. And Furiosa did.”

Earlier this month, in a profile for Vanity Fair, Hemsworth said he felt he let audiences down with the fourth standalone movie centring on Marvel’s God of Thunder.

“I got caught up in the improv and the wackiness, and I became a parody of myself,” he told the publication of his reaction to watching 2022’s Love and Thunder. “I didn’t stick the landing.”

Elsewhere, the Marvel star said he grew frustrated with the Asgardian hero’s role among the Avengers.

Article content

“Sometimes I felt like a security guard for the team,” Hemsworth said. “I would read everyone else’s lines, and go, ‘Oh, they got way cooler stuff. They’re having more fun. What’s my character doing?’ It was always about, ‘You’ve got the wig on. You’ve got the muscles. You’ve got the costume. Where’s the lighting?’ Yeah, I’m part of this big thing, but I’m probably pretty replaceable.”

A fifth Thor film has not been confirmed, but in a 2022 interview with Postmedia, Hemsworth said he was ready to keep playing the character for many years to come.

“I love playing the character, and I have since the first day,” he said. “As long as I get to keep working with wonderful directors and cast and crew and different writers and there’s an opportunity to do something different with the character, I’m down for anything. I’ll wait for the fans to say, ‘No thanks, we’ve had enough of you.’ But until then, I love it.” 

[email protected]

Article content