Ridley Scott: Super Hero Movies Are "F---- Boring As S---t"

[AndyDursin]

As much as I hated ALIEN COVENANT he's right on!!

[Monterey Jack]

Coming off one of his biggest box office bombs, this smacks of jealousy.

[AndyDursin]

I don't think he's jealous with the career he's had. I think he means what he says.

But he may be jealous theres no marketplace for adult movies anymore. The multiplex will be about stupid international corporate products for 16 year olds and family audiences probably forever now. We have 1000 super-hero movies made over the last decade to partially thank for that.

[mkaroly]

Part of the issue is how over-marketed they are pre-release and during release - as in, "LOOK AT ME!!! YOU HAVE TO WATCH ME!!!" Lol...there is so much "pressure" put on viewers to like these movies - the implication on the other end of it being that if you don't like the movie something is wrong with you to some degree. I lost interest in the Disney super-hero movie some time ago and continue to have no interest in watching any of them. Therefore, I guess something is wrong with me...lol...

[Eric W.]

Agreed despite some of his output like those Alien prequels and now... God help me... I'm looking at Gladiator 2 in preproduction.

[Monterey Jack]

I agree that there are far too many of these superhero movies...but it does seem like the ultimate in "Old Man yells at cloud" grousing when auteurs in their 80s are using social media to call attention to themselves when their latest for-adults drama doesn't find an audience. If Twitter existed in 1958, would you have heard Alfred Hitchcock complaining about the popularity of westerns when Vertigo flopped? Scott is a great filmmaker, but he's made his share of stinkers over the decades, and a lot of them are due to having screenplays as patched-together as anything in the MCU (still can't believe he went in the direction he did with Alien: Covenant, essentially pulling an Alien 3 on his own Prometheus! ). Brilliant auteurs like Scott, Scorsese and the like are just using the discourse over superhero cinema to keep their heads above water, and it's kind of sad, on multiple levels. It's like a little kid jumping up and shouting, "Look at me, Ma...!" while their mother is trying to hold a conversation with another adult. You don't hear Clint Eastwood complaining, he just makes a new movie a year, and doesn't care if no one shows up.

[AndyDursin]

But they don't have a right to say anything? See I think they're completely on target, especially from an artistic angle. It's unquestionably the singular most predictable, dullest movie genre that's come along in my lifetime. There's no innovation or surprises, it's so cookie-cutter that watching a 2 minute trailer is all you need to see most of the time.

The worst part is that it's helped hasten the demise of the theatrical forum for adults. Thats why they have an axe to grind -- and I can't say I blame them. The success of these rote Marvel movies has been great for Disney and bad for literally everyone else.

[Monterey Jack]

Hey, I'm with you...it sucks that a movie like Last Duel makes pennies, when Shang Chi makes $230 mil even in mid-Pandemic. But it doesn't mean I want to hear people complaining about it over and over. The complaints about superhero cinema have become as tiresome as...superhero cinema.

[Paul MacLean]

If Twitter existed in 1958, would you have heard Alfred Hitchcock complaining about the popularity of westerns when Vertigo flopped?

Probably not -- but of course Rear Window, To Catch A Thief, The Trouble With Harry and North By Northwest were mega-hits, so Hitchock probably wasn't too disgruntled.

And unlike MCU flicks, many westerns of that era were high-pedigree films -- John Ford and Howard Hawks were among the most venerated directors working at that time. How many "great directors" have helmed MCU flicks? How many MCU flicks are as vaunted as The Searchers, or The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance?

Brilliant auteurs like Scott, Scorsese and the like are just using the discourse over superhero cinema to keep their heads above water, and it's kind of sad, on multiple levels. It's like a little kid jumping up and shouting, "Look at me, Ma...!" while their mother is trying to hold a conversation with another adult. You don't hear Clint Eastwood complaining, he just makes a new movie a year, and doesn't care if no one shows up.

To me it seems they are motivated more by their love of cinema (to which they've devoted their lives) than sour grapes. They've watched as studio interest in quality product -- whether it's Oscar bait or "summer popcorn" fair -- has given way to loud, simplistic comic book flicks which are tailored to adolescents and little more than glorified action figure ads.

Of course studios have always turned-out commercial fluff -- but even a piece of 80s fluff like Top Gun had more substance than Avengers: Endgame (and Top Gun was at least gorgeously photographed, and attempted to cater to people over the age of 13).