James Gunn Thinks It’s Time For Hollywood To Stop Hating On Superhero Films
Thank you very much.
Sounds like some people might need to watch dancing Groot for a few hours on a loop to not be so mean-spirited and grumpy.
At the Independent Spirit Awards this week, Nightcrawler director Dan Gilroy publicly slammed our favorite film genre, saying,
Independent film, the foundation and everybody here today, I think are holdouts against a tsunami of superhero movies that have swept over this industry. We have survived and we have thrived and I think that’s true spirit.
Big words from a guy who named his movie after a superhero, but okay.
The next night, at the Academy Awards, Jack Black’s cameo in NPH’s intro seemed to mock this sort of Hollywood entitlement, and later NPH noted that Zoe Saldana’s films are huge box office successes. But despite that, superhero films were again shut out of the awards ceremony, with Guardians winning neither of the awards for which it was nominated (make-up and VFX, of course).
On Facebook, James Gunn had something to say about the elitist attitudes held by Hollywood pros like Gilroy.
Gunn is absolutely right – there’s a place in cinema for all genres, and just because one movie is a low-budget indie and another is a commercially-successful sci-fi flick doesn’t mean one is inherently any better or worse than the other. The time it took to make Groot (a fake thing) the heart and soul of a superhero film is no less important than the time it takes to infuse pathos into an indie film. As much as I’m sure Joss Whedon loved making Serenity, I’m sure he also loved following that up with one of the biggest blockbuster hits in the history of cinema. Plus, it’s not like superhero films are Hot Tub Time Machine 2 – they’re, on the whole, good movies.
Anyways, bitter isn’t generally a good look. James Gunn tells it like it is.
(via FB)
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