“It’s become really convenient to pick on [Marvel films],” Sebastian Stan said. “And that’s fine. Everyone’s got an opinion. But they’re a big part of what contributes to this business and allows us to have smaller movies as well. This is an artery traveling through the system of this entire machinery that’s Hollywood. It feeds in so many more ways than people acknowledge.”
“Sometimes I get protective of it because the intention is really fucking good,” Stan added at the time. “It’s just fucking hard to make a good movie over and over again.”
Stan’s Bucky/Winter Soldier will be front and center in next year’s Marvel tentpole “Thunderbolts,” and he hopes the character stays around long enough to meet Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom on the big screen.
“I hope I’m in a scene with him,” Stan says. “Is there any other guy that could pull that off? I don’t know, probably not. After ‘Tropic Thunder,’ is there anything that guy can’t do?”
It’s… our responsibility as viewers to “offer something better”? I’m not a movie maker, I’m a fan. I’m rooting for Marvel. But I also recognize that they’ve made billions of dollars off these movies. And that they’ve gotten complacent and as a result the quality and direction has gone downhill. They’re not owed our money for throwing something on screen…
“I’ve never been part of a company that puts so much heart and thought into anything,”
Maybe the movies he was a part of, but something has changed. Maybe the writers and producers are different on the contemporary projects and they lost the secret sauce of the phase 1 projects he got to be a part of.
The idea that anything is impervious to criticism if the person criticising can’t offer something better is bizarre. Its perfectly fine to criticise something.
I don’t know enough about the inner workings of Hollywood to comment on the idea that Marvel is a big part of the Hollywood ecosystem aside from thinking that I’m pretty sure movies - great movies - existed before Marvel started making movies and that its surely a concern that Marvel have so much power that their failure affects smaller movies from being made. That doesn’t sound healthy at all.
It definitely isn’t healthy, but that’s where we are right now. Too few people are willing to watch original respectively smaller movies.
Which means fewer such movies are made and it’s harder for actors to get these roles. There is a reason why so many established movie actors are in TV shows nowadays.
I don’t know enough about the inner workings of Hollywood to comment on the idea that Marvel is a big part of the Hollywood ecosystem
Sebastian Stan is starring as Donald Trump in a movie right now. Never ever would he have gotten that role if not for Marvel boosting his career and rising his profile.
Really confused what he expects here, give a free pass to bad films? Go see a film multiple times even if we didn’t enjoy it? As it’s mass repeat ticket sales that pushes films well over the $1bn mark And that’s the expectation here with the bloated budgets of these mid card films. Make out own films with he hundreds of millions we have lying around?
I get nobody sets out to make a bad big budget film but you have budgets of hundreds of millions, do better. Start employing people for talent rather than who they related to or who they know. Start by not treating your audience with contempt with cookie cutter scripts, lazy characterisation, and more plot holes than plot.
I don’t think he’s talking about people who want better quality Marvel movies; I think he’s talking about people who think Marvel movies can’t be good by definition, by virtue of what they are. It’s totally fine to not like them, if that’s not your thing, but some people are just snobs who want to sneer at what they see as beneath them.
Yep, speifically the comments about how they are an economic engine for the film industry. I think some people have conflated audiences’ changing attitudes about what truly needs a visit to the local TEMPLE OF CINEMA, with the popcorn-factory that can most regularly still pack them in.
I am just as interested in seeing Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson convey the powerful emotions of a disintegrating marriage as I ever was (which is to say, I’m gonna get to it! Eventually. It sounds really moving. I think my kid wants to watch Gravity Falls, though), but I will be just as content watching it in my living room, and I have no intention of waiting for someone else’s start time or not being able to pause, or dealing with strangers just so I can see the actors’ nose-hairs.
Now, Adam Driver stabbing people with a crackling laser sword, or Scarlett Johansson blowing up angry robots to save the world? However good it is (or isn’t), it’ll be noticeably better on a ginormous screen with equally ginormous speakers blasting me into a suspension of disbelief, and I’m willing to put up with a certain amount to get that experience. Shit, if it’s actually done well, then having other people there with you is almost like being at a sporting event, and they may even add to the experience (maybe; let’s not get carried away).
Spectacle is not a dirty word, and though I admit I have no patience for things that offer nothing else, I don’t need the rest to be truly groundbreaking if it is fun and made with some sense of care and craft.
I haven’t watched any MCU movies in a long time. My problem isn’t that there’s spectacle, it’s that it’s basically the same spectacle as the other movies, and the plots don’t add much either. The characters may change, but the plot is mostly identical. Some are more funny than others, and some have better written characters than others, but I can get better of both of those with other movies that may actually have something new to offer. My issue is most people watch these because it’s what gets the marketing budget. If they gave that budget to something new that wanted to be creative, I think that’d be more valuable. It’s not going to happen until the MCU burns though.
Effectively you’re voting with your wallet, and that’s fine. I’m not spending zero on Marvel stuff myself, but I am definitely spending noticeably less, because even if I’m not completely tuned out of their house style, any sense of urgency is long gone. That’s what will cause it to burn through, though, people not paying. Marvel needs to rethink their formula, and the other studios need to appeal to audiences with ideas better than “Marvel but not as fun.” Maybe that is what Stan is getting at when he asks the industry to offer something “better.”
I do still think there’s a naivete among certain cinephiles in and out of the industry that Marvel can be blamed for things, when they’re really doing little more than throwing money and talent at Saturday serials from 90 years ago. I just don’t think the trends that are sending The Irishman to Netflix or forcing Megalopolis to be self-funded are Marvel’s fault, or if they are it’s in a very fungible way, and superhero fatigue will result in a different variety of mass spectacle, which will be lauded for whatever minor innovation it brings before growing stale and being derided by the people who still won’t be finding an audience to hit “legacy” box office metrics.
Now, one thing I have kinda started to believe is that there was a certain value in the fuzziness of not being able to predict what would work, which I guess is a way of agreeing with you to a certain extent. The studios have never done anything without an eye towards profit, and maybe the fact that the Marvel formula worked so well made it easier to keep going to the well (or trying to dig their own well), with less money being thrown around trying to guess what would fit the moment and blow up. We’ve certainly lost some stuff that would have been creative successes, but a lot of that talent has migrated to streaming in various ways, and most of we truly missed out on would have been just as cookie cutter as Marvel. The cinemas in the 90s and earlier were frequently just chock full of absolute garbage, and sometimes you’d watch the garbage just because the theater was a third-place and your only TV was a 19" glass box with two shitty speakers.
I don’t get how that’s our problem, these people were never his customer base for Marvel films, they wouldn’t see them even if they were the second coming of Citizen Kane. They don’t have magical powers that prevents the majority of his actual customer base from going. He and the rest of the production team have that power, and if they continue to fail to understand why the likes of Thor: Ragnarok is a great film and Thor: Love and Thunder really isn’t, then there is no nope for them.
Its very clearly about money, its the lead quote from him from the OP, and that shows utter contempt from him of his audience.
If people are “upset” about the MCU, it’s because of how much they like it and how they want it to be better than it’s become. And the idea that fans could “offer something better”, given Disney’s team of lawyers and copyright protections, is laughable. Like what, are fans going to film their own MCU movies & shows? The only thing we can offer is snarky comments on the internet, that’s all we’re allowed to do without getting sued, and I’m sure even that will be taken away from us within the next 10 years.
No, but you could create your own thing
Lol. Fans and critics aren’t creators. Don’t ask them to do your job better than you are.
…oh wait - if you do try, we’ll sue you into oblivion and nuke any trace your creation from orbit - too baaaaaad~
Easy to say when you have a monopoly on the IP and a penchant for litigation. You’d think the biggest media conglomerate in the world could turn out something decent, but when they have a near-monopoly, why would they bother?
Man who’s career depends on thing is supportive of thing. I for one and SHOCKED and UPSET that someone could like something they have an active financial and creative part in. Does he not know super movies bad???
yeah if you don’t like it just make your own big budget film.
Damn bitch it’s just entertainment.
A: fuck you, Sebastian B: turns out I don’t work on Hollywood, and it’s not my job to provide alternatives C: fuck you again, and fuck Marvel
The more well known something is, the more criticism it will receive. Also with movie prices going up and Disney reminding everyone each year how little they care about fans, it’s not a surprise people have cooled on their decade old properties.
They are also spending more to make objectively less exciting projects. When the first Avengers movies were coming out it was impressive how well they brought comics to life. It’s not impressive any more with so many examples, so they aren’t pushing the bounds of expectations anymore. They have to wow people now with writing and performances.
I think the decision makers are also making more diversity choices (in the wrong way) and have the PR teams talk too much about how proud they are of their DEI choices instead of how they like the movie they made.
Black Nick Fury is best Nick Fury. Black Panther was incredibly well received. I felt like Moonknoght was better received than I was expecting. Miles Morales was a very popular Spiderman iteration. So I don’t think it’s just racism.
They just need to acknowledge who’s actually buying tickets. It sometimes feels like the same complaints people make about the WNBA not making a bunch of money.
They are also spending more to make objectively less exciting projects
Most criticism I’ve seen of Marvel is vs their previous stuff. They really set a high bar for excitement. Even though they haven’t been trying for the same sort of excitement, that’s what audiences have to compare with
I do like what they’ve done with some of their short series stuff.
But my favorites since the big blockbusters have been Ms Marvel and Moon Night. Ms Marvel was a really compelling story with the cultural connection, teen angst, discovering and growing into powers, but unfortunately I don’t see how you continue that formula. On the other hand, Moon Night seems open ended - I want more
What big hole? The hole that has been swallowing most funding at the expense of other movie genres? 20 years is long enough.
So there are two parts of this interview that look to be pushed together.
The first being about offering something better, which seems to be more focused on the Martin Scorsese crowd. Which I think is fair criticism. There are many different ways to make movies and there are many different types of films.
The second is can feedback. I’m sure as an actor it’s frustrating to make a film or TV show that perhaps sounds great on paper, but ends up less good that you’d hoped. Now for Sebastian Stan and Bucky, I don’t think his character has suffered this problem yet. Maybe Falcon and the Winter Soldier could have been better, but I think Bucky’s story was told well. However I could see Anthony Mackie getting shit on, or the overall show receiving poor ratings, and him taking it personally. Or the other shows that did end up coming out poorly.
The people who star in those movies could single handedly keep them afloat if they so desired. If the fanbase is waning it’s because you’re doing something wrong.
Love the Tropic Thunder namedrop.
