Thor and Furiosa star Chris Hemsworth has voiced his frustration over Martin Scorsese's viral criticism about movies coming out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, labelling his words as ‘harsh'.
He shared his reaction to the famous director's words from 2019 when Scorsese told Empire Magazine that MCU movies are “not cinema”.
“I don't see them. I tried, you know? But that's not cinema,” Scorsese told the magazine.
He added: “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.”
Now, a fair few years later, Hemsworth has shared his frustration with the director's thoughts.
While talking with The Times of London (as per Variety), Hemsworth said: “It felt harsh, and it bothers me, especially from heroes. It was an eye-roll for me, people bashing the superhero space.”
He added: “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?”
Fellow director Francis Ford Coppola agreed with Scorsese during a 2022 interview with GQ, in which he said: “There used to be studio films. Now there are Marvel pictures. And what is a Marvel picture? A Marvel picture is one prototype movie that is made over and over and over and over and over again to look different.”
The Avengers: Endgame star continued to disapprove of both Scorsese and Coppola's comments, telling the outlet in the same aforementioned interview: “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.”
Hemsworth also took jabs at actors – such as Idris Elba and Christian Bale – who have criticized being a part of Marvel movies, with Elba once calling it “torture”.
“It's, like, ‘They're films that are successful — put me in one. Oh, mine didn't work? I'll bash them,” Hemsworth said.
He continued: “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.”
“But hey, it's all a lesson,” he added.
“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 shit out of me. And ‘Furiosa' did.”
Furiosa is currently in theatres as of writing this article